‘I had no idea you could fake that,’ says retiree who lost $2.5 million and was forced to sell her house after Skype calls

A RETIRED woman was saved by her friends after falling victim to a sophisticated romance scam that cost her her home and her future.

The victim who spoke under the fake name Sue detailed how the scammers used advanced technology to make their lies more believable.

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Last year, more than 64,000 Americans lost more than $1.14 billion due to romance scams, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Between 2018 and 2020, Sue gave her scammers nearly $2.5 million, believing she had met her future husband through the dating site Match.com.

“My goals were to retire and see the world. I reached my financial goals… I was on top of the world,” she said. CBS News this week.

“I’ve never been married, and I thought, ‘You know what? If I want to get married now is the time to do it.’”

‘BAD ACTORS’

That’s when she met a man called Santos through Match.com, who claimed to be a UK businessman who traveled the world for work.

Sue detailed how she often forgave Santos’ last-minute calls, which would mean they wouldn’t meet in person, as she had already put work first in her life.

Furthermore, Santos used sophisticated technology that is being leveraged by scammers to gain the trust of their victims.

“I Skyped with him. I had no idea you could fake Skype,” admitted Sue.

Andrew Whaley, senior technical director at Norwegian application security company Promon, previously told The US Sun how “bad actors can now convincingly impersonate real people.”

“New technology is enabling an updated form of catfishing, where a fraudster can generate artificial videos or images, often using real human faces or voices,” he explained.

Sue and Santos spoke regularly via email and phone, with Santos sending her daily poems he had supposedly written for her.

“If I made a mistake, it was because I didn’t cut it at that moment,” she told the news outlet.

Like many scammers, Santos entered the relationship strongly by bombarding Sue within the first month of conversation, as demonstrated by her daily poems.

He quickly started talking about marriage and with it, money, asking Sue if she would help him pay for the business expenses he would pay.

“$150,000, $250,000, $75,000…write a check for $250,000 and then write another check for $50,000,” Sue recalled.

“People say ‘How can you give money to a stranger?’ He wasn’t a stranger at that point.”

‘PSYCHOLOGICAL MANIPULATION’

Over the course of 18 months, Sue sent so much money that she was forced to sell her house, and in August 2019, she resigned herself to the fact that she would most likely “end up being poor with it.”

“I just thought, ‘Okay, I can live with him and be poor, that’s fine, as long as we’re together,’” she said.

It was only in August 2020 that she discovered that Santos was a scammer, when she received a call from the Secret Service informing her that she had been the victim of a love scam.

“When he said there wasn’t even a Santos around, it was hard to wrap my brain around it,” Sue admitted as she noted the “psychological manipulation” used to “hook” the victims.

Cyber ​​Expert Advice on How to Spot a Romance Scam

A cyber expert with knowledge of romance scams spoke to The US Sun and warned users of warning signs to watch out for. Roger Grimes, defense evangelist at cyber firm KnowBe4, listed eight key questions you should ask yourself:

• Is the person trying to get you off the dating site and onto an unmonitored app?
• Are they asking too many questions before revealing information about themselves? This could be an attempt to establish common ground and build trust.
• Are they avoiding phone calls and video chats and making excuses?
• Do they say they travel a lot or are not in the same country? This is often a profitable part of the scam as they need money.
• Have you ever said that you are going to travel on a certain day and something unexpected happens, so you need money to get there?
• Do they ask for deep, dark secrets or incriminating or nude photos? This could be used for blackmail later on.
• Have they said they were scammed before? Sometimes this is a strategy to build trust and convince you that they are not scammers.
• Do they have a sob story? Like if your spouse died suddenly or left unjustly? Or are they left with kids or huge bills to pay?

Read more here.

“Living with this right now is the hardest thing ever,” she admitted as she continues to fight to get her life back on track.

The retiree faced the prospect of living in her car and ending up on the street if it weren’t for some friends who took her in.

“They took me in for the first eight months, which was really good because I think I probably would have committed suicide,” she admitted.

“You don’t know how they mess with your brain. They manipulate. They punish you. It changed me dramatically,” she said.

Match.com and Skype have been contacted for comment.

The US Sun previously reported on a man who sold his home and divorced his wife after falling in love with a woman he had never met.

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If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255), chat at 988lifeline.orgor text Crisis Text Line at 741741.