Match CEO Bernard Kim sparks outrage with callous response to shocking rise in romance scams – after widow who was conned out of $1.5M by man on dating site mysteriously drowned in river: ‘Things happen’

The CEO of Match.com has said ‘things happen in life’ after an Illinois widower was found dead following a romance scam.

Laura Kowal, 57, had been in a relationship for more than a year with a man she met on the site named “Frank Borg” when she was found dead in the Mississippi River in August 2020.

Daughter Kelly Gowe received a call from a federal agent informing her that her mother had been the victim of a scam and when she tried to contact her mother, she discovered she was missing.

Speak with CBS NewsGowe revealed that she had found records showing that Kowal Borg – who was not real – had wired $1.5 million and left her a terrifying note.

After a year of research CBS News in online romance scams like the one Kowal was embroiled in, the outlet managed to catch up with CEO Bernard Kim.

When asked about those who had lost their life savings to scammers, he told the newspaper: “Things happen in life. That’s very difficult.’

Kim continued, “I have tremendous empathy for things that are happening, but our job is to keep people safe on our platforms; that is the most important thing for us.’

The outlet’s investigation revealed how foreign-based criminals managed to steal more than $1 billion from victims last year.

Senior law enforcement officials told CBS that the scams are not new, but are being accelerated by the easy access scammers have to vulnerable, lonely Americans using dating apps.

In the note to her daughter, Kowal wrote: I have been living a double life for the past year. It has left me shattered and shattered.

‘Yes, it’s about Frank, the man I met through online dating. I tried many times to stop this, but I knew I would end up dead.”

On August 7, 2020, Kowal’s body was discovered near Canton, Missouri — nearly a four-hour drive from her home in Galena, Illinois — and her car was found nearly 50 miles away from her body, reported WTV.

No formal ruling has yet been made on Kowal’s manner of death, but an autopsy revealed that she died by drowning.

‘They are the scammers, they are the criminals behind those emails. It’s Frank Borg… this character. He killed my mother,” Gowe said.

“And everyone involved in this scam in any capacity, transferring money, making a phone call, hitting ‘enter’ and ‘send’ on an email, they are all responsible for my mother’s death.”

Emails shared with CBS News revealed that within weeks of their 2018 virtual meeting, Kowal and Borg shared emails in which they told each other they were in love, despite never having met in person, and he convinced her to send him money.

‘She had all those buckets full in her life, so did my mother, but there was one bucket that was missing and that was company. And that’s ultimately where we are today, and it’s because of that,” Gowe said.

According to her obituary, Kowal enjoyed tending her flower and vegetable gardens, participating in local golf competitions and volunteering through therapy dog ​​work with her beloved golden doodle Effie at a nursing home.

Federal agents discovered that Borg’s photos belonged to a Chilean doctor and that his emails were traced to Ghana.

Nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam in 2022, according to the Federal Trade Commission, a government watchdog.

Reported losses were as much as $1.3 billion and on average victims lost $4,400.

“Digital tools make it easier than ever to target hardworking Americans, and we’re seeing the effects in the data,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Romance scammers routinely set up fake social media profiles to target their victims online.

They engage in a lengthy campaign – often involving hours of messaging – to build a relationship with the victim before the conversation turns to money.

In some cases, the crooks will offer an investment opportunity, or ask for money for a fake medical procedure or charitable effort.

So-called ‘pig slaughter’ scams fall into this category, where victims are essentially ‘fattened’ with a fake relationship before being ‘slaughtered’ by fraudulent investment advice.

A former scammer from Ghana told CBS: “You can’t do anything without those online dating sites.”

Match Group, which operates a number of popular dating sites, says they have expanded their security policies and are investing more than $125 million a year to protect customers.

The company also says it manages to remove 96 percent of fake accounts in one day.

The company is disputing an allegation from the Federal Trade Commission, which said in a lawsuit that as many as 30 percent of profiles were opened to commit fraud.

Match Group said it did not believe the claim had merit and that it was not legally responsible for the interactions between scammers and their victims.

A judge dismissed the part of the case that attempted to hold the group responsible for fraud activity on their sites.