My friend told me he was scammed out of £500,000 by an investment firm – but little did I know he was scammed by his secret Tinder lover who went to great lengths to keep him on the hook
A man who had a secret love affair with a woman he met on Tinder was conned out of £500,000 – before she then faked her own death in a relentless attempt to continue ripping him off.
The victim was tricked for years after going behind the back of his partner of 15 years into a sexual relationship with a “much younger woman” from a “wealthy background.”
During their lengthy affair, the man splashed out tens of thousands of pounds on his new ‘lover’, who convinced him she was on a witness protection program after becoming embroiled in a ‘drug ring’ during her time as a prostitute.
The honey catcher even convinced her “intelligent” target to “pay for her college education” by claiming she wanted to change her life and train as a paramedic, while lying to his partner claiming he was pumping money into an internet network. investment company in an attempt to hide his affair.
After faking her own death, the woman’s “daughter” continued the costly charade, this time telling the victim – who is not named – that she needed help finishing her mother’s affairs.
Scammers, claiming to be lawyers, then told the man he was the beneficiary of his late girlfriend’s ‘trust fund’ – and convinced him to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds of ‘legal fees’ without ever getting anything in return.
Then, miraculously, the man’s girlfriend “came back to life” and emailed him a picture of herself – as the gang behind the brutal scam tried, and failed, to keep milking their victim’s bank account .
Everything – the girlfriend, her daughter, the lawyers, the college education – had been ignited by a gang of sophisticated outlaws.
Woman was stunned to learn her partner’s secret – he had paid 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 filled with stories about people’s day-to-day money problems, ranging from readers asking how to get insurance companies stumped after committing pickpocketing offenses on holiday, to someone waiting a year for a refund from British Airways.
The astonishing story came when an anonymous reader wrote to Ms Morley with concerns about their partner, who they feared had been ‘swindled’.
In the letter, the person described how her partner had insisted he invested “a significant amount” in an online investment firm.
“After four years he wanted to withdraw some money and was told that a lawyer had to step in,” the reader wrote. “He has now paid the investment firm and the lawyer a combined £500,000. Then the website disappeared.
“Fearing that this was a scam, I urged him to contact Action Fraud. He wasn’t really convinced, but eventually he contacted us and got a reference number. About three months ago he received a call from ‘Action Fraude’. He was asked to pay £900 and was told his case was not a fraud.
She was shocked to hear the truth: ‘I said all the time he was scammed, but he wouldn’t believe it’
“All the time I said he was being scammed, but he wouldn’t believe it. He is a very intelligent and proud man who, I think, feels extremely stupid and ashamed.’
Ms Morley investigated the allegation and spoke to the partner – who then made the sensational admission that he was having an affair.
“He warned me that this was going to be one of the strangest conversations I’d ever had in my life, and he wasn’t far off the mark.” wrote Mrs Morley.
The Consumer Champion then reveals how the man told her how he had lied to his partner about his “investment” – and how his younger lover’s teenage daughter subsequently “came out of the woodwork” after her mother’s “death.”
Ms Morley went deeper into the story, analyzing the man’s lover’s death certificate – which turned out to be false, with a medical report claiming an autopsy had been performed a year before the woman died.
Amazingly, the man confessed that police warned him in 2019 that he was being scammed, Ms Morley said, and that the fraudsters did everything they could to convince him his girlfriend was real.
After proving that letters he received from his ‘bank’ and ‘Action Fraud’ were also all fake, the man was told to block all numbers of the ‘fictitious lawyers’ who tried to call him and get more money from the ignorant brand. .
The story took a strange turn when the man’s alleged lover claimed to have returned 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 said was an attempt by scammers to continue siphoning more money from their victim.
The investigation into the scammer revealed that the man had made as many as 4,000 payments from his Lloyds bank account to the scammers.
Lloyds has since repaid £150,000 – about half the money the man gave his ‘girlfriend’ during the stage of the scam where she was ‘still alive’, Ms Morley added.
However, the banking giant said it will not pay back the money it lost after police warned it in 2019 that it was being scammed.
Have you fallen victim to a bizarre scam and want to tell your story? Email tom.cotterill@mailonline.co.uk