Scam warning: Retiree loses over £50,000 and takes out second mortgage in scam | Personal Finance | Finance
Victims have understandably been left in tears after scammers took their life savings with some vulnerable people losing huge sums of money. BBC’s For Love or Money viewers have watched Kym Marsh and Ashley John-Baptiste try and uncover the truth behind online romance fraud in an effort to help draw a line under this horrific chapter in people’s lives.
On today’s episode, Norman, a retired council manager, explained how he fell victim to the horrific scam.
After coming out of a long term relationship, the 67-year-old was looking for love and companionship, especially since the pandemic was so lonely for him.
Without much success locally, Norman joined an LGBTQ dating website. It wasn’t long until he welcomed a man – who used a fake alias ‘Michael Chambers’ – onto his social group on the site.
Michael told Norman he was a 28-year-old mature student living in Canada.
Their relationship started to develop as the two of them spoke more and eventually bloomed into something serious. Michael said he had plans of moving to the UK after his graduation so they could start their lives together.
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Suddenly, Michael claimed he was having financial problems with his university fees and convinced Norman to send him £1,000 to cover the amount left owed.
After seeing an invoice from what looked like the university, Norman felt more comfortable with sending Michael money and also covered the rest of his accommodation costs. Eventually, Norman had sent over £4,000.
At this time, Michael also told Norman that his late father had left him £1.5million worth of gold in his will. However, Michael claimed that he owed money to a security deposit company in order to release the gold. Michael would need to pay an additional £4,000 and he asked Norman for help.
A supposed lawyer contacted Norman about the will, which backed up Michael’s story and he sent the additional money.
Over time, Norman sent Michael “over £50,000” in hopes Michael would receive his inheritance and pay back what he owed.
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Michael explained that the gold was worth now £18.3million, and he needed to go through an extensive and expensive process to verify the gold was real and worth that amount – which caused extra fees.
Norman said: “Some of the £50,000 was savings, some of it was loans.
“Ultimately I took out another mortgage on my house and that helped me provide Michael with the money.”
However, it was only when he went to recover some of his money that alarm bells started to ring.
Norman was sent a link to what he was told was Michael’s bank account, which showed a balance of £18million. Michael had told Norman to send himself £60,000 to cover what he owed, and an additional £6million.
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After sending this money to his account, Norman contacted his bank to tell them a large sum of money was going to enter his account. At this point, the bank asked him to explain the situation and told him this was all a scam as no money had been sent.
In disbelief, Norman said: “How could Michael do this to me? How could I be so stupid because I used to be a professional manager in local Government?”
When Norman confronted Michael about the scam, Michael denied any involvement.
Norman said: “The silly thing is I got on well with him because I saw him as a soul mate it really adds insult to injury.
“There’s five percent of me that thinks he is Michael and that he is real.”
After investigating Norman’s case, Ashley found that he was on the end of a sophisticated scam.
He found several errors on Michael’s passport which suggest it had been fabricated using editing software, and several errors on Michael’s dad’s will. Additionally, in the emails sent to Norman, the spelling of Michael is inconsistent.
Ashley also contacted the university Michael supposedly attended to ask about the invoice they sent Michael. The university confirmed that it was fake, and they did not send this. All the photographs that Michael had sent Norman of himself were stolen from an entirely innocent man.
Norman said: “I am more convinced than ever that I’ve been had. A very convincing liar and actor has spent a lot of time in my company with telephone calls sometimes twice a day.
“Somebody who I thought I had a good relationship with has stolen a huge chunk of money.
“Thanks for doing the investigative work on this. At least it can give me peace and forget about Michael.”
Episodes of For Love or Money are available BBC iPlayer.
