Local woman loses $55,000 in online dating scam

One local woman thought she found love, but instead was scammed out of $55,000.

Betsy (she asked to keep her last name private) signed up for match.com in March of last year. Quickly, she thought she met someone who would be great for her, a man named Eric. When it came time to meet for coffee, Eric said he had to go to California for a presentation. He then said he was selected to be an electrical engineer for an oil rig in Bulgaria, and had to fly there to get the job. Once he got it, he said he needed some help getting a piece of equipment.

“I said ‘well, what do you need?'” Betsy said. “How much money do you need? And he said well I need $15,000 for this piece of equipment and I should be able to pull it together. So I said, well, I can probably help you out if that’s what you need. That seems reasonable. If you’d like some help I’ll help you and we can write up a promissory note and you can pay me interest and pay me back in 10 days.”

Betsy thought that was it. Until he contacted her again, saying he needed help getting another piece of equipment.

“I said, well, don’t you have some business contacts?,” she said. “Can’t you contact anybody else? You must know some people. And what about other family members. There has to be other sources besides me.”

Despite her friends saying not to, Betsy sent him $40,000. He said he would pay her back, but never did. Several times she spoke with someone connected to him to get the money back, but every time she agreed to meet them, they backed out. The Better Business Bureau says this type of thing happens all the time on dating websites.

“These scammers are good at what they do,” said Jeremy Johnson, marketplace manager for the Northwest and Pacific Better Business Bureau. “They coax people in little by little. Maybe send them a gift or a little some there to try to lure them in. And little by little they kind of start this relationship and you know all of the sudden people are giving away thousands of dollars when they normally wouldn’t do so.”

At one point she was sent $500, but that was it. Her $55,000 were gone, to a man she never met in person.

“There’s no such thing as face value,” Betsy said. “I will never believe the words of another person until they’ve proved that they can be trusted to me.”

Betsy has contacted local law enforcement and the FBI, but nothing has been done at this point. She is still dating online. She recently found the same man on match.com and got him kicked off the site. If you or someone you know is ever a victim of a scam, you can use the Better Business Bureau scam tracker to report it.