Victim of romance fraud in Suffolk issues warning
She was conned out of £320,000 by a man she met online.
Last updated 21st Oct 2020
The victim in her 50s, referred to as Anna to remain anonymous, began looking for companionship during the pandemic after losing her husband to an illness last year.
She turned to a dating website, as she had met her husband on one, and was approached by a man referred to as Tim, who claimed to be a civil engineer from Windsor.
After making contact on the website they began communicating through WhatsApp, but when they had their first telephone call, Anna noticed a foreign accent that she was not expecting.
Tim said he was South African and had forgotten to mention that previously.
He told Anna he was going abroad for work as he was the project manager of a transportation scheme in Eastern Romania, and claimed he was chartering a private plane to get his equipment there.
He soon came to Anna for help, saying his equipment had been seized by customs and he would need to pay import duty on them, but couldn't as his company credit card had apparently been blocked by his bank.
Anna initially refused to help financially and instead told him to seek help from the British Consulate and his accountant, but his pleas began to get more desperate.
Anna said: "Like a fool I asked him to tell his translator to get customs to contact me and I would see if could help logistically to cover the duty costs from here in the UK."
Tim then said he needed £68,000 to get his engineering equipment released, which Anna agreed to do after being sent his passport and driving licence.
Despite paying all this money already, Tim's demands continued to escalate to a request for £200,000 to secure his contractors and store his equipment.
Anna refused, but was under immense emotional pressure by Tim, and after a few days of silence he sent a text saying he had been admitted into private hospital with Covid-19 and that his translator had died.
She was left worrying if Tim was OK, and if she was ever going to get the money back he had promised, which now totalled £320,000.
Anna contacted the British Consulate in Bucharest and South African authorities to see if she could help to get him home, but there was no record of Tim in any hospital or in Romania itself.
The project he was apparently working on was real, but he was not.
Anna said: "The pressure I was under was immense. I can’t begin to tell you how awful I felt at the time. My heart and head were in conflict.
"The enormity of how I had been scammed hit home. I couldn’t sleep for days. I felt so sick with it all, and could not confide in anyone the stupidity of my actions.
"Not only the magnitude of the loss made me feel dreadful, but also the feeling I’d lost everything my parents had worked for."
A police investigation found the account she had transferred money to belonged to a woman in Bath and North East Somerset.
The local police force found the woman wasn't a criminal, but was also a victim of romance fraud herself, this time falling for a man claiming to be called Toby.
Anna has since managed to recover half the money she lost through her bank, and is now in a new relationship.
She's hoping to put what happened behind her and is urging people in similar situations to contact police or Action Fraud.