Two women from the Toronto area are sharing their experiences after falling victim to romance scams, including a single mother who lost $62,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rama, who asked CTV News Toronto not to use her real name to protect her privacy, recounted how she met a man on Facebook who claimed to be a captain of a cruise ship in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe asked if I was single, and I said yes. He seemed to be in love with me and wanted to know more about me,\u201d Rama said. The man professed his love and began sending her gifts, including designer purses, watches, and jewelry. However, he claimed that the shipment was held up at the Canadian border and required payment for brokerage fees, taxes, insurance, and other costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rama ended up spending $62,000 trying to retrieve the gifts, only to discover it was all a scam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m so broken. I took out all my life savings and even a line of credit for $54,000,\u201d she lamented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another victim, Paige Harkness, shared her story of being scammed by a man she met online. Four years ago, Harkness met a man on a telephone dating site who claimed to manage a hedge fund and often traveled by private jet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe wore a tailored suit and seemed very successful. I had no reason to question him,\u201d Harkness explained. Although they only met in person twice, the man continued to stay in touch, periodically texting her. Recently, he offered her a supposed investment opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harkness ended up losing $14,000, money she had taken out on a line of credit against her home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m juggling all my other bills, and this loss has hit me hard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC), 1,190 victims lost $52,477,512<\/strong> to romance fraud in 2023, making it the third most common scam based on reported losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The CAFC advises watching out for signs of a romance scam, such as someone declaring love quickly, making excuses not to meet in person, urging secrecy, and asking for money for travel or emergencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both women expressed regret for not recognizing the red flags sooner and hope their stories will help others avoid similar situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI feel so foolish because this could have been avoided. I should have contacted the police from the beginning,\u201d said Rama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scammers often create fake dating profiles using stolen photos and tailored information. With advances in artificial intelligence, criminals may become even more adept at deceiving people looking for love online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two women from the Toronto area are sharing their experiences after falling victim to romance scams, including a single mother who lost $62,000. Rama, who asked CTV News Toronto not to use her real name to protect her privacy, recounted how she met a man on Facebook who claimed to be a captain of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[33,38],"class_list":["post-4170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-romance-scams","tag-scam-awareness","tag-scam-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4172,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4170\/revisions\/4172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}