Dating fraudsters steal £40m from victims in one year
A RECORD number of people fell victim to online dating scams last year – giving nearly £40million to fraudsters.
Ruthless overseas criminals posing as suitors targeted almost 4,000 wealthy Britons in so-called ‘romance frauds’.
The vast majority of victims were affluent and successful professional women looking for love.
But surprisingly, two out of five victims are men, latest figures reveal.
Action Fraud, the UK’s cyber-crime reporting centre, said men now make up 39 per cent of those who come forward. But investigators fear the number is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ as many are far too ‘embarrassed’ to even tell their own families.
They said the average victim loses £10,000 as they are lured into a web of intrigue by mysterious strangers they meet on popular dating sites.
They traced many scams to criminal networks based in West Africa
‘Scam made me feel brutaIised’
and Eastern Europe but struggle to bring fraudsters to justice.
According to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, there were 3,889 victims of so-called romance fraud last year, who handed over a record £39million. This compared to 3,295 reports of dating scams in 2014, with reported losses of £32million. In 2015, the number of victims rose to 3,363, but losses fell to almost £26million.
Action Fraud, the UK’s cyber-crime reporting centre, said it now receives more than 350 reports of such cons a month. One university professor lost £140,000 in a series of scams orchestrated by an individual she only knew as ‘John Porter’, who claimed to be based in London.
Judith Lathlean, 68, of Hampshire, said she was attracted to a supposed Christian interior designer. But she started to hand over money when he claimed to be trapped in South Africa without a passport and needing help to save a valuable contract.
‘The emails started getting a bit frantic, and the phone calls – “I’m really worried, I’ll lose the contract and this is going to be awful because it’s very valuable”. And I immediately, because I was so believing in him, said, “Don’t worry John, I can loan you some money”.
‘There was a total eventually of £54,000 for that particular part of the scam,’ she told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme.
A second woman was left more than £300,000 out of pocket after falling for the profile of a handsome Italian supposedly based in Turkey.
The North Yorkshire businesswoman, 47, fell for elaborate lies, sending cash to help keep his business afloat. She said she faces bankruptcy and feels ‘brutalised emotionally’. The fraudsters trawl through profiles and use information to manipulate victims.
Police investigate but it is difficult to trace culprits. ‘Cyber-psychologist’ Professor Monica Whitty insisted it is ‘not the case that stupid people fall for romance scams – they can be very clever’. And Steve Proffitt, of Action Fraud, warned: ‘Never send money to people you meet online.’