My boyfriend told me he’d been scammed out of £500,000 by an investment firm – but I didn’t know he was being conned by his secret Tinder lover who went to amazing lengths to keep him wriggling on the hook
- The man is thought to have been the victim of a sophisticated group of conmen
- Have you been conned by a fake lover? Email [email protected]
A man who had a secret love affair with a woman he met on Tinder was scammed out of £500,000 – before she then faked her own death in a ruthless bid to continue ripping him off.
The victim was tricked over several years after going behind the back of his partner of 15 years to pursue a sexual relationship with a ‘much younger woman’ from a ‘wealthy background’.
Have you been a victim of a con while trying to hide your affair?
Did scammers rip you off while you were trying to hide something from your lover? Tell your story by emailing [email protected]
During their lengthy fling, the man splashed out tens of thousands of pounds on his new ‘lover’, who convinced him she was in a witness protection programme after becoming embroiled with a ‘drugs gang’ during her time as a prostitute.
The honey-trapper even convinced her ‘intelligent’ target to ‘pay for her university degree’ by claiming she wanted to turn her life around and train to become a paramedic, while he lied to his partner and claimed he was pumping money into an internet investment firm in a bid to hide his affair.
After faking her own death, the woman’s ‘daughter’ then continued the costly charade, this time telling the victim – who is not being named – she needed help wrapping up her mother’s affairs.
Conmen, claiming to be lawyers, then told the man he was the beneficiary of his dead girlfriend’s ‘trust fund’ – and convinced him to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in ‘legal fees’ without ever getting anything back in return.
Then, as if by miracle, the man’s girlfriend ‘came back to life’, emailing him a photo of herself – as the gang behind the brutal scam attempted, and failed, to continue milking their victim’s bank account.
All of it – the girlfriend, her daughter, the lawyers, the university course – was a rouse by a gang of sophisticated crooks.
The woman was stunned to learn her partner’s secret – he had been paying money to a woman he met on Tinder
The shocking story was revealed in the most unlikely place – the letters section to the Daily Telegraph’s consumer champion, Katie Morley.
The column is full of stories about people’s day-to-day money woes, ranging from readers asking how to get insurance companies to stump up after falling foul to pickpockets on holiday, to a person waiting for a refund from British Airways for a year.
The astonishing story came when an anonymous reader wrote to Ms Morley with concerns about their partner, who they feared had been ‘scammed’.
In the letter, the person described how her partner had insisted he had invested ‘a significant amount money’ in an online investment firm.
‘After four years he wanted to withdraw some money, and he was told a lawyer needed to become involved,’ the reader wrote. ‘He has now paid the investment firm, and the lawyer, a combined £500,000. Then the website disappeared.
‘Fearing this was a scam, I urged him to contact Action Fraud. He really wasn’t convinced, but ultimately he did make contact and was given a reference number. About three months ago he received a call from ‘Action Fraud’. He was asked to pay £900 and was told his case was not fraud.
She was shocked to learn the truth: ‘I said all along he was being scammed, but he didn’t want to believe it’
‘I said all along he was being scammed, but he didn’t want to believe it. He is a very intelligent and proud man who, I think, feels extremely stupid and embarrassed.’
Ms Morley investigated the claim, speaking to the partner – who then made the sensational confession he had been having an affair.
‘He warned me this was going to be one of the strangest conversations I’d ever had in my life, and he wasn’t far wrong,’ wrote Ms Morley.
The consumer champion goes on to reveal how the male told her about how he had lied to his partner about his ‘investment’ – and how his younger lover’s teenage daughter then came ‘out of the woodwork’ following the ‘death’ of her mother.
Delving deeper into the story, Ms Morley analysed the death certificate of the man’s lover – which proved to be fake, with a medical report having claimed an autopsy was been performed a year before the woman died.
Astonishingly, the man confessed that police had warned him back in 2019 that he was being scammed, Ms Morley said, and that the fraudsters went to ‘great lengths to convince him’ his girlfriend was real.
After proving letters he received from his ‘bank’, and ‘Action Fraud’ were also all fakes, the man was told to block all the numbers of the ‘fictitious lawyers’ who were trying to call him and extract more cash from the unwitting mark.
The story took a stranger twist when the man’s alleged lover claimed to have come back from the dead
Then, Ms Morley said something happened that left ‘both our jaws on the floor: his girlfriend miraculously came back to life’ in what she is convinced was an effort by scammers to continue to siphon more cash from their victim.
The investigation into the con revealed the man had made a staggering 4,000 payments from his Lloyds bank account to the conmen.
Lloyds has since refunded £150,000 – about half of the cash the man gave his ‘girlfriend’ during the phase of the scam where she was ‘still alive’, Ms Morley added.
However, the banking giant said it will not refund any of the money he lost after the police warned him in 2019 he was being scammed.
Have you been the victim of an outlandish con and want to tell your story? Email [email protected]
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