How looking for love – and a cloned website – robbed Vivian of her €115k life savings in a cold-blooded fraud
A cautionary tale as gardaí reveal fake ‘Romeos’ swindled 200 people out of huge sums last year
When 45-year-old ‘Vivian’ went on dating website Tinder in December last year, she was drawn to Andy, a good-looking 36-year-old gentleman who didn’t want a sexual partner. ‘I’m just looking for real and simple love,’ he said on his profile. Vivian was intrigued – here was someone a little different from the usual crowd of men simply on the lookout for easy sex, she thought.
The fact that he said he was from Russia did not concern Vivian, who works for a successful manufacturing company.
His profile said he lived just 35 miles away from her. ‘He slowly sucked me in with lots of online and telephone charm,’ she says.
Over the next two months, as they chatted on WhatsApp, Andy gained Vivian’s confidence – although social-distancing rules meant they were never able to meet.
So convincing was he that the selfacclaimed ‘senior investment expert’ then managed to persuade Vivian to ‘invest’ the equivalent of over €115,000 in trading cryptocurrencies through what she thought was legitimate finance company IC Markets.
Money that she initially raided from her savings and then – as demands for more money were made to meet ‘fines’ and ‘tax’ – she obtained money from a bank loan.
Sadly, a couple of weeks ago, she discovered what she didn’t want to hear.
She had all along been the victim of fraud. Her money was not being used to buy bitcoin which would have been massively profitable.
Instead, it was funnelled overseas, probably never to be seen again.
The IC Markets website she thought she was using to trade was a clone – set up by fraudsters to look like the real IC Markets, an Australian-based company that enables investors to trade financial derivatives.
‘Why did it take so long for the penny to drop?’ Vivian asks herself. ‘I was convinced that what Andy was encouraging me to do was a good way to make money. Now, I face financial destitution.’
Temptation is certainly what drew Vivian into the fraud committed against her. Living with her parents, she had long been keen to buy a home of her own and had opened a savings account to work towards that goal. But when she started speaking to Andy, she thought her dream could be met much earlier.
Within days of connecting on Tinder, Andy began talking about how easy it was to make money from trading cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
‘I don’t really know much about bitcoin,’ texted Vivian.
‘I can be your teacher,’ he replied. ‘I am a senior investment expert.’
Vivian took the bait. To begin with, she invested €350 through the trading platform recommended by Andy. Then, as her trades seemed to make profits, she invested more. ‘I invested £5,000, then £8,000 and another £4,000,’ says Vivian.
When Vivian asked if she could withdraw her money, she was told she would have to make a $25,000 deposit.
The trading platform she was using was not IC Markets – but a clone. Last week, the official IC Markets told the Mail on Sunday that it had reported the clone website to the ‘relevant authorities’. The clone, registered just a couple of months ago – with fees paid for just one year – also suddenly disappeared.
Of course, all this is of no joy to Vivian. She is unlikely to see her money again. As for Andy, he was encouraging Vivian to invest more money until a few weeks ago.
When Vivian confronted him, his response contained expletives, followed by: ‘I shouldn’t have helped you.’
At no stage did Andy send her any additional pictures of himself, suggesting that his Tinder picture might also have been cloned. And the earlier messages between them – which she screen-grabbed – are no longer on the site.
Vivian, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, is a UK-based woman whose father contacted the Mail On Sunday for advice. Scams like the one she was caught out by were on the increase before lockdown but since then they are even more prevalent and dangerous.
People are bored, lonely, spend a lot of time online and fraudsters (who could be based anywhere) have a ready-made excuse not to meet up with lockdowns in force.
The Irish Central Bank has issued
warnings about cloned websites like the one Vivian fell victim to.
‘Fraudsters are increasingly using legitimate firms’ details to add an air of legitimacy to their fraud,’ a spokesman said, when we outlined the case.
‘The fraudsters will “borrow” all of the legitimate information of an authorised/legitimate firm for the purpose of this fraud. They may quote authorisation numbers/company registration numbers and links to seemingly legitimate websites and even provide the real address of an authorised/legitimate firm.
‘Consumers are advised to check our register to verify a firm’s details and to call the firm back directly using its advertised phone number.’
Last month, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority said that consumers lost £78m to ‘clone firm’ investment scams in 2020. It also said that the pandemic had made investors more susceptible to such scams.
Almost 200 cases of romance fraud were also reported to the gardaí in 2020.
The victims were both male and female and from all age groups. And the average amount of money lost was over €20,000.
‘The Covid-19 regulations and travel restrictions have resulted in reduced social gatherings and as a result, is generating opportunities for fraudsters to engage in online romance fraud,’ a Garda spokesman warned.
This particular fraud is enabled via online dating sites or other social media by fraudsters who will provide the victims with well-prepared stories designed to deceive.
‘This crime often leaves vulnerable people with a feeling of hurt and mistrust in addition to their financial loss. In some recent cases we have seen the criminals targeting people with learning difficulties,’ he said.