The woman found out that she was scammed more than 2 billion dong after watching a movie

Kathy, a woman living in the US, said she lost 92,000 USD (2.1 billion) to a man he met online.

Due to feeling lonely during the epidemic, Kathy decided to use SilverSingles – a dating platform for people over 50 years old. Then she meets a mysterious man and the relationship begins to progress quite perfectly. Kathy felt moved because he called her sweet nicknames and never stopped giving compliments.

“I think I’m in love because every time I hear from him, my heart breaks. He’s really cute,” Kathy shared.

“I asked to meet him and he replied that he had urgent business and would have to go on a business trip to Toronto. A few weeks after he was in Toronto, he said that he needed $5,000 to apply for a work permit. In the drunkenness of love, I thought I wanted to help this man,” Kathy recounted.

She said the man then fell into more urgent situations such as having an accident and requiring a lot of money for treatment. When Kathy told her she didn’t have enough money, he encouraged her to think of other ways to get it. In the end, Kathy mortgaged her house to borrow money to help her “lover” online.

Kathy says she believes the money will be returned because the man sent her a screenshot of his bank account with a large balance.

However, after being persuaded by a friend to watch “The Tinder Swindler,” a hit Netflix documentary about several women who lost money due to online dating scams, Kathy “ eyes”, but it was too late, now the money she gave the scammer had reached nearly 100,000 USD. She is currently postponing retirement to pay off debt.

“He broke my heart and tore my life,” Kathy said painfully.

Spark Network, the parent company of the SilverSingles application, states that “Safety is always a top priority, and when we detect any potential fraud, we take a variety of measures to fix it. We use internal filtering, AI-based tools to detect unusual transactions, and create a dedicated team to manually review fraud cases. We also invest in educating our users, advising them to report any suspicious cases to Customer Care.”

According to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), online love frauds increased six-fold from 2017 to 2021. In total, users lost at least $1.3 billion.

Steve Bernas, president and CEO of Better Business in Chicago and Northern Illinois, said the actual number could be even higher because many people feel embarrassed and don’t report being scammed. Mr. Bernas says you’re more likely to have encountered a scammer if he or she always makes excuses not to meet in person.

Huong Dung (According to The Sun)