a lonely Illinois A woman named Kathy was scammed $92,000 out of her life savings by a man she met on a 50+ dating site – a common story after she turned to dating websites to fight isolation during the COVID pandemic.
Kathy, who didn’t want to share her full name, only realized what she was doing after seeing the man she called ‘Hubby’ Netflix show tinder Swindler’, which was released in February.
The scandal cost Kathy thousands, forced her to delay her retirement to pay off debts, and separated her from her children.
After two years of pandemic separation starting in 2019, Aurora’s Kathy decided she no longer wanted to be single. ‘If something like this happened, you know, I don’t want to be alone again. You know, I need someone here,’ she said ABC Chicago In a story on Friday.
Illinois woman, Kathy, was single after the pandemic and joined dating website SilverSingles, where a thug cheated her out of her life savings of more than $92,000
SilverSingles is a dating website for singles aged fifty years and above. In a statement, he urged users to stop communication and report any profiles asking you for money.
She decided to sign up for SilverSingles, a dating website for people over the age of 50, and met a man she described as a ‘beautiful old gentleman’ whom she fell in love with. I had gone crazy.
‘I thought I was in love because every time I heard from him, my heart would just open up. And it was interesting, exciting,’ Kathy said. ‘And before calling, after every phone call, we prayed in turn.’
The handsome old gentleman was first calling and texting Cathy, calling her ‘wifey,’ saying things like ‘I love you more,’ and remembering to text with heart emojis.
The texts show Kathy and ‘Hubby’ calling each other life partners, soul mates and the love of each other’s life.
The badass showered excitement and emojis with Kathy saying ‘wifey’ and ‘my love’. Kathy calls the conman a ‘hubby’
When Kathy asked to meet with the man in person, she told him that she needed to suddenly leave for work in Toronto. A few weeks later he started paying $5,000 for a work permit.
‘It’s a match made in heaven and you are my soulmate,’ one text shows the man as saying.
But texts and calls were the limit of their contact. When Kathy tries to make plans to meet in person, the man says she has to leave Toronto for work all of a sudden.
A few weeks later, he started asking her for money.
The scammer tells Cathy that she has had an accident, and that she needs money for surgery. He sent her this photo, which is blurry here because scammers often take pictures from the internet to serve as the face of their false identity
‘They said I need these permits to work here and I need $5,000 for this permit. And they won’t take checks or anything. So I’m thinking, “Well, yeah, I want to help this guy”. You know, I’m falling in love with him. Why would I not want to help them?’
After Cathy sent the first $5,000, the man claimed he had been in an accident and needed money for surgery.
She also sent a picture of herself in a hospital bed, though it is unlikely that any of the pictures she saw were actually of the hubby, as scammers often took pictures from the Internet to serve as their identity face. Huh.
From there, the man’s misfortunes continued to mount, and Cathy’s cash seemed to be the only way out.
The man’s misfortunes multiplied after the accident and surgery, and Cathy’s cash was always the only solution.
It made sense to give Cathy the money, ‘I’m thinking, yeah, I want to help this guy. You know, I’m falling in love with him. Why would I not want to help them?’ He said
‘We started talking about where we could get that money. And he kept on suggesting, you know, so I ended up refinancing and taking money out against my house,’ she said.
The man sent her a screenshot of his bank account—one showing more than half a million dollars in a checking account—and promised to pay it back once he had access to his funds.
She refinanced her house and took out a loan, and sent all the money to her boyfriend.
Then one night — on the recommendation of a friend — she watched the Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler,” a documentary about several women who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to a dating app conman.
Kathy refinanced her house and took out a loan to bring in money for the hubby. He eventually paid the scammers $92,000. gave more than
Cathy was kicked out of her bank because they suspected her of money laundering. He has delayed his retirement to pay off the debt he had accumulated during the election
‘I’m going, ‘Oh my God,’ said Cathy, ‘everything, you know, matches.’
But by then, Cathy had sent the man over $92,000 and his life was in pieces.
‘He ruined my credit too. I have been kicked out of my bank. Cathy told ABC Chicago that they closed my account and they feared I was laundering money.
The thief sent this screenshot of a bank account to Kathy. He claims it was his, and that he pays her back for all the money he is sending her
Cathy was forced to delay her retirement to pay off her new debts, and texts reveal that her relationship with Hubby had caused a rift with her children.
The hubby wrote in a text, ‘Your children have turned against you because of me.
Data from the Federal Trade Commission shows victims lost $1.3 billion in romance scams over the past five years, and the instances of reported scams increased six-fold from 2017 to 2021.
‘He broke my heart. He ripped my life apart,’ said Kathy.
Federal Trade Commission data shows romance scandals exploded during the pandemic, rising six-fold from 2017 to 2021
Steve Burns, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois, told ABC Chicago that although online dating scams increased during the pandemic, the actual scope is unknown because they are largely unreported.
‘Some people feel they are really embarrassed that their family will find out and some we’ve talked to still believe they’ [the fake lovers] exist and they are about to come out of the woodwork again,’ he said.
‘And that’s always a reason they can’t meet you. And this is what we call tip off to rip off.’
Aurora Police told DailyMail.com that without the victim’s full name they cannot verify whether she has filed a report about the scam, and that they will usually hand the case over to the Chicago FBI because Internet scams often occur across the state or even across the state. national lines.
Sparks Network, which owns SilverSingles, could not be reached for comment, but told ABC Chicago that it advises users on its site to cease communication with anyone asking for money and to report the profile.
“Dating should be fun, so we want to make sure our platforms are a safe and comfortable place for our users,” it said in a statement to ABC Chicago.
‘Safety is always a top priority in everything we do across all of our brands at the Spark Network. When any potentially fraudulent behavior is detected, we apply a number of countermeasures. Spark uses external AI-based tools, robust transaction detection, internal filters and employs a large, dedicated fraud team to manually review cases. Unfortunately, as with any online activity, there are “bad actors” out there, although we are dedicated to keeping our users safe on our platform,’ the statement said.