Be careful! Romance scams becoming more common
Northern Kentucky man recalls being scammed multiple times.
(ABC 36 NEWS NOW) — Nowadays, people are looking for love in a number of places especially online.
As the popularity of online dating and dating apps continues to grow, so do the ways romance scammers can take advantage of your vulnerability.
“I was vulnerable at that time. My wife of 30 years died. I was lonely, it was through this rendezvous dating site and the woman that I thought I was involved with, that was just a complete nightmare,” says Brian, a man who got scammed.
The more places people look for love, the more vulnerable one can become. As a result, romance scams are becoming more and more common.
“I lost a great deal. I lost all my retirement to the last person. Nearly $300,000 because of that, money is very, very tight now. And this last year since then hasn’t been very good,” also said Brian.
Romance scams can occur when a criminal adopts a fake online identity to gain a victim’s affection and trust.
This became the case for Brian, a Northern Kentucky man who wants to keep his true identity protected.
What he thought was a genuine connection with a woman he met online turned out to be a scam.
“Be very wary of anyone, the one where I lost $300,000 that came off something as common as Facebook, and the thing is if someone is real, you need to at least be having video calls with them,” added Brian.
He hopes to raise awareness, because on the other side of the computer could be someone like Chris Maxwell from Nigeria.
“I got into those the 2016,” said Chris Maxwell. Maxwell claims to be a reformed scammer, and says he used to take advantage of others while he was in a time of need.
“Things were not going as I thought it’s good because I was in the university and I was staying in roster. So I was basically doing everything myself. I needed to, to do some things that I could not do. that was how I went to scamming because I wanted to make money,” recalled Maxwell.
Adding that, “I scammed this woman, she gave me over $6,000, after that she became sick because she was in so much debt.”
Maxwell also adding that romance scams are very popular where he lives.
Meantime Brian adds a warning to others, “go with your gut instincts.”
Adding that if something seems too good to be true it probably is.
If you are currently talking to someone, and would like to do a search on the person, “Social Catfish, a company that verifies online identities using reverse search technology.”
