LOVE AND LOST £50K WITH CYBER SWINDLE

Grooming is a key part of many online frauds, as one poor woman found out after meeting a bloke called Andy on dating site Tinder.

“We just chatted normally at first about likes and dislikes, we seemed to get on well,” said Diane, a London nursery school worker – I’m withholding her surname.

“Then he started saying he was in love with me, he was piling on the emotion.

“He talked about moving in together and buying a house.”

When asked about his job, Andy – it turned out to be a made-up name – said he made money from cryptocurrency trading and suggested that Diane did the same.

“He kept sending me pictures from this website showing how well he was doing,” she said.

“I told him that I didn’t know anything about trading but he said he’d show me.

“Eventually he persuaded me to put in £5,000.”

She transferred money from her bank into cryptocurrency exchange Binance, and from there to the trading site recommended by Andy, Fxsmgroup.com.

Her trading boomed, according to reports she received from FXSM, and Andy convinced her to invest more, saying they’d make enough for a house deposit.

In total she put in £50,000, which the website told her had grown to $250,000 – about £180,000 – thanks to successful trading.

Then Diane tried to withdraw it, only to be told that first she must pay 10% of her balance to cover taxes.

Diane explained that she didn’t have the money and got the message: “If you fail to complete the payment within one month, we will take action against you, we will freeze your account and prosecute you for tax evasion.”

When it became clear that she would not hand over any more money to FXSM, the once love-struck Andy stopped responding to her Whatsapp messages.

“Previously he had been sending messages daily saying how he was in love,” she said.

“It was a form of emotional abuse.”

The pictures he’d sent Diane were lifted from the Facebook page of an entirely unconnected shop worker from Germany.

FXSM hides behind a passwordprotected website and even when you get past the home page there’s nothing to indicate who they are or where they’re based.

It did not reply to my questions or comment on the fact it has been added to the scam alert list published by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Tinder advises: “Ultimately no one, whether they met on Tinder or not, should ever send money to someone they haven’t met in person.”

I told him I new nothing about trading but he said he’d show me