An 80-year-old British mum handed over £140,000 after falling in love with romance scammers who claimed to be dying and then kidnapped, it is reported. The unnamed woman believed she was in a genuine online relationship with an individual she met on Facebook, but was in fact chatting to a team of highly-specialised fraudsters who were using AI to create images and even voice notes of the fake man.
Elaborate tricks used to extort money
Scammers used a number of tricks to extort money from the vulnerable mum, including faking a serious illness that required an expensive operation to treat, her daughter Helen told the BBC. The mum was convinced by this particular lie, and ended up sending £10,000 hidden inside a hollowed-out book to what she believed was a hospital in Shanghai.
In another episode, the fraudsters staged an elaborate fake kidnapping, and pushed their victim into sending over a ransom to avoid her AI boyfriend being murdered. Once again, she was fooled.
Bank returns only £45,000
In total, the woman handed over £140,000 to the scammers, of which only £45,000 has been returned by her bank. Helen said even when she found out what had happened to her mum after receiving some messages intended for the bogus boyfriend, dealing with the situation was tricky.
She explained: “I didn't feel like I could cope with not having any tool to deal with it. That's not expertise that most families have got.”
Family intervention and advice
Helen admits that her mum did not respond well to the scam, and accused her of overstepping boundaries when she did confront her. Helen said: “She was saying I made her feel disgusted and ashamed. And that I should let her have her relationship and not intervene.”
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, says on its official Safety Centre: "We are constantly working to detect and block scams that purposefully deceive, misrepresent, defraud and exploit people for money or property."
Age UK advises that "If you contact your bank, you may be able to recover money you’ve lost in unauthorised or unexpected payments."
