How love can take a wrong turn, A cautionary tale for One Woman

Sophia still believes in love. 

The 30-year-old from Virginia, who only wants to be identified by her first name, had big dreams of getting married. Finding her soulmate. 

In March 2023, she moved closer to her dream. She met a man on a dating app. They spoke over the phone for months. He promised they would meet one day in person. She thought he was serious about marriage. 

Not long after, he professed his love, using poetic words to make her fall for him. But the love connection was a scam. 

Sophia said her boyfriend lied about his true identity. He convinced her to wire money to his fake Kragen futures company. Even though she really did not have the funds for any type of investment, the bad actor used her name to take out a loan to trade. 

”On my fake account, he pretended to guide me to trade and get a good return. He said that we needed $20,000 to $30,000 to get a good return.” Sophia told Spanning the Need. “He pretended to loan me $20,000 through the website to use to trade although it was fake.”

Sophia thought her investment in Cryptocurrency was legitimate. But it turns out Kragen futures was a phony company he set up to target victims.

“This was a scheme.” Sophia said. “This was all fraudulent and needs to be stopped.”

She reported the activity to the Better Business Bureau in the District of Columbia among other organizations.

Melissa Ames, the president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau in Youngstown, said the BBB estimates that more than $1 billion is lost annually in the US and Canada to romance scams.

”Please be very cautious if you are in a new relationship and this person starts to ask for money or personally identifiable information.” Ames said. “ This is a major red flag that the person you are dating is not who you think they are.

“Matters of the heart are not immune from falling victim to scams.”

#POTW: Michael Kermec, Musician(Opens in a new browser tab)

Tips to spot this scam:

Too hot to be true. Scammers offer up good-looking photos and tales of financial success. Be honest with yourself about who would be genuinely interested. If they seem “too perfect,” your alarm bells should ring.

In a hurry to get off the site. Catfishers will try very quickly to get you to move to communicate through email, messenger or phone.

Moving fast. A catfisher will begin speaking of a future together and tell you they love you quickly. They often say they’ve never felt this way before.

Talk about trust. Catfishers will start manipulating you with talk about trust and its importance. This will often be the first step to asking you for money.

Don’t want to meet. Be wary of someone who always has an excuse to postpone a meeting because they say they are traveling or live overseas or are in the military.

Suspect language. If the person you are communicating with claims to be from your hometown but has poor spelling or grammar, uses overly flowery language or uses phrases that don’t make sense, that’s a red flag.

Hard luck stories. Before moving on to asking you for money, the scammer may hint at financial troubles like electricity being cut off, a stolen car, sick relative or a sad story from their past (death of parents or spouse, etc.).

Protect yourself from this scam:

• Never send money or personal information that can be used for identity theft to someone you’ve never met in person. Never give someone your credit card information to book a ticket to visit you. Cut off contact if someone starts asking you for information like credit card, bank, or government ID numbers.
• Ask specific questions about details given in a profile. A scammer may stumble over remembering details or making a story fit.
• Do your research. Many scammers steal photos from the web to use in their profiles. You can do a reverse image lookup using a website like tineye.com or images.google.com to see if the photos on a profile are stolen from somewhere else. You can also search online for a profile name, email, or phone number to see what adds up and what doesn’t.

Updated: February 15