A WEST Somerset woman was forced to sell her grandfather’s wedding ring to service debt after sending £156,000 to a fraudster she believed was her long-distance boyfriend.
Jenny, aged in her 50s, was left with no money in the bank and taking out loans so she could keep handing over cash to a conman.
The mother of two ‘fell in love’ with John after joining a dating app following the breakdown of her 30-year marriage.
Jenny communicated with John over the phone and via messages, as well as in video calls where the scammer is thought to have used ‘deepfake’ artificial intelligence techniques to create a false likeness.
The pair first spoke online in May 2022, before agreeing to meet in person in London a few weeks later. But John cancelled the date at the last minute, claiming he had been called away to a business meeting abroad.
The ‘couple’ agreed they would meet up a few weeks later, and in the meantime John “love-bombed” Jenny with messages and gifts. She said: “It somehow didn’t matter that this was just over the phone. He constantly messaged and called me.”
But by July, having secured Jenny’s trust - John began to request money. He needed cash, he told her, in order to finance work he had secured to recommission an oil rig.
Jenny spent all of her savings obliging John’s request for funds, before taking out loans so she could send even more money to him.
The next month, in August, John agreed to meet again, this time in Bristol. Jenny arrived in the city after taking the train, but John failed to show.
Someone purporting to be John’s brother, James, messaged Jenny to say John had been in a car accident, which she accepted.
What followed was a series of abandoned meet-ups, with Jenny footing the bill for John’s flights, but each time he would fail to arrive on the plane, offering a new excuse on each occasion.
She said: “I had lost count of the amount of flights I had booked him at this point. I was tempted to just fly out to Ireland, but I was already financially paralysed by this point.”
Come November Jenny was left feeling “suicidal” and selling ‘everything’, including family heirlooms, to service the debt she had incurred on John’s behalf.
It wasn’t until September the following year that Jenny put a stop to the transfers - realising she was the victim of a scam. She said: “I just couldn’t deny it anymore and decided to get my head out of the sand and face up to the reality of the grave situation.”
Jenny says she has now joined a new dating site, with her “eyes wide open” and has started a new relationship which is going “really well.”
The shocking scam prompted Avon and Somerset Police to issue a warning over incidents of so-called romance fraud, calling any victims to report the crime to Action Fraud online or by calling 0300 123 2040.
*Names have been changed