A young couple can no longer afford their dream wedding after the bride-to-be was scammed while trying to make some extra money with an online side business.
Ashlie Campbell, 27, lost $35,000 after she inquired about a “data processing” job at Virtuoso Travel, which she found through a Facebook listing.
The Geelong disability and aged care worker was promised a salary of $100,000 a year to write fake reviews for the legitimate travel company.
She messaged the person who posted the job and was quickly connected to a “mentor” named April, who Ms. Campbell spoke to via WhatsApp.
April told her that she should start writing reviews about a specific program, but Ms. Campbell kept getting interrupted by a pop-up telling her that the account had “insufficient funds.”
Her mentor explained that Ms Campbell needed to ‘temporarily’ deposit money into her account, which would be refunded once the reviews were written.
Despite adding the money, the pop-up continued to appear and by the time Ms. Campbell submitted her final review, she had deposited $300.
The next day the money was refunded through a Crypto trading platform with a $50 commission on top, leading Ms Campbell to believe the job was real.
Ashlie Campbell, 27, lost $35,000 in an online scam that promised her a $100,000 salary to write fake reviews
Ms Campbell responded to a job posting on Facebook and was quickly put in touch with a ‘mentor’ called April, who instructed her to deposit money into a separate online platform
Ms Campbell said her first paycheque “stupidly gave me confidence” and she continued writing reviews.
The pop-up kept appearing and she paid the charge amount each time before finally complaining to April about it.
“I said this isn’t fair, I don’t like this and she said, ‘Well, you know you’ve already gone this far, do you want your money back or not?’ told 7NEWS.
‘I [was] I was pressured to continue and by the time I completed my assessments I had spent just under $35,000.”
Once the reviews were complete, April explained that another payment of $10,000 was required to upgrade Ms. Campbell to a ‘pro’ review account and then a final deposit of $26,000 to withdraw everything.
Ms Campbell told her mentor: ‘I’m not rich’ and that she wouldn’t be able to pay the final fees before realizing it was a scam all along.
By then, April had already blocked her and Ms. Campbell could no longer send messages to anyone else at the company.
Mrs Campbell was too ashamed to tell her fiancé, Dylan, that she had lost all their savings to the online scam
Ms Campbell is now trying to raise awareness so that other people like her don’t fall for similar scams in the future
Mrs Campbell reported the scam to the police, but they explained that nothing could be done to get the money back.
She struggled to find the courage to tell her fiancé, Dylan, what happened because she “felt so ashamed… and thought, ‘What have I done?’
The money was intended for their wedding, engagement party and a new car for Mrs Campbell.
Mrs Campbell had just completed her Certificate 4 in Disability and Aged Care and the new car needed to be transported’wheelchairs and accessories’ for the people she cares for.
“I feel like as a support worker I always give back to the community…I’m never normally one to ask for help,” she wrote in an GoFundMe.
‘I’m very aware that so many other people have been affected by scams and I know I’m not alone.
“I really want to raise awareness about how people can easily be lured into these scams and how many different types of scams there are.”