Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Women duped in date scam
THOUSANDS of women are being duped into parting with thousands of rand in a “romance scam” that’s leaving them out of pocket, and brokenhearted.
The women are among more than 2 000 people internationally estimated to fall victim to the scam daily, and are now sending out a warning to other women to not part with their money.
In the one case, a Durban woman, named as Stacey, who had lost her husband of 32 years, became a target.
“I was new to the dating scene and didn’t know of these scams, but I’m fairly IT and techno-savvy, so I really wouldn’t have expected to have fallen victim to any online scam.
“I registered a profile on an online dating site thinking everyone there was also just trying to find the right partner,” she said.
Contact was made by a man named Jason last year, and after exchanging email addresses, Stacey was informed that he was an industrial engineer of Scottish and Hungarian descent, wid- owed with a grandson in England.
“We would chat and he was wonderful. Very attentive.”
The relationship continued over two months. He said he was on contract in Ghana and once his work was done, he wanted to fly to her in South Africa.
The day before he was due to land he said the machine had swallowed his credit card and he urgently needed to pay his foreman $5 000 (R73 000).
“There was an urgency to it… so I deposited about R25 000 via money transfer into his account in Ghana,” she said.
The wait at the airport for him to arrive turned into tears, as Stacey realised she had been scammed.
“I finally discovered he was from Ghana, and reported my experience to the US- based Society of Citizens Against Romance Scams. All the images he sent to me are already there.”
The South African Fraud Prevention Service said there had been significant growth in this type of scam and warned people to be extremely careful online.