US dentist calls private eye after losing $600k to NZ romance scam
Mystery Hamilton woman scams retired dentist out of life savings
The family of a retired US dentist have hired a private investigator to hunt down a Hamilton woman who has allegedly swindled the 70-year-old out of $600,000 posing as his fiancee.
Kelsey Upright is the daughter-inlaw of Dr Gary Weber who has lived in Indiana all his life and met a supposedly young Hamilton woman on a New Zealand dating site five years ago.
Weber has transferred around $600,000 in small instalments to the woman, Upright says.
“He is extremely lonely and I believe she preyed on that,” Upright said of her father-in-law who divorced from his wife 10 years ago.
“My wife [Weber’s daughter] and I have tried to tell him for two years how fake this situation was. We hired a private investigator about a week ago and then that’s when the case broke open for us.”
Weber has never met the Hamilton woman and only conducted a video call with a woman with large sunglasses and heavy makeup once. The retired dentist was under the impression he was engaged to her.
The Herald on Sunday has seen bank transfers of US$50,000 (NZ$57,000) out of Weber’s account to the Hamilton woman’s account, however most instalments are in the hundreds and low-thousands.
Upright says she knew her fatherin-law was transferring money to the Hamilton woman for two years, but never knew how much.
The 27-year-old US citizen and her wife Ellie only discovered last week the retiree had transferred around $600,000 of his retirement savings.
Upright hired Hamilton private investigator Stephen Hawkins to look into the Hamilton woman last week.
The alleged woman’s social media profiles were deleted after Upright posted about her father’s situation on a Hamilton residents Facebook group on Thursday.
Hawkins had gone to the Hamilton address of the alleged scammer.
“I know he’s given her an awful lot of money,” he said.
Hawkins is compiling a report that he will present to police tomorrow and has confronted the owner of the property — a middle aged woman in a dressing gown, Hawkins said.
“I got videoed, which is normal, and no questions were answered. I was told to p**s off basically.”
The Herald on Sunday spoke to a woman by phone who said, “It is not accurate. It’s just social media we’re talking about. You’re just coming at me with allegations that are not important at all.”
Upright said the “best case scenario” would be to recover some of the money but she would at least hope to see some justice. She said her father-in-law has this week “finally” been convinced he is not in a romantic relationship with the Hamilton woman.