A Brampton woman named Anne is heartbroken after losing her life savings of more than $200,000 to a romance scam that spanned nearly two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anne first connected with the scammer through a friend request from a man claiming to be looking for friendship. \u201cHe seemed like a very nice person, always saying I sounded genuine and that he\u2019d like to visit me in Canada,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the following year, the man shared details of his life, telling Anne his wife had passed away from cancer and that he had two sons in need of costly surgeries. He assured her that he only needed a loan, as he was working in Texas and expecting a $5.6 million payment from a six-month contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Initially, Anne resisted sending money, but the man sent her roses and eventually persuaded her, pleading for her help. \u201cHe begged me, saying, \u2018You seem like such a nice person,\u2019\u201d Anne said. Gradually, she sent him over $200,000, her entire savings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t until much later that Anne realized she had been deceived. \u201cOver one year, he borrowed all my savings \u2013 over $230,000,\u201d she admitted, devastated and humiliated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, romance scams are among the top three fraud types in Canada, with Canadians losing over $52 million to these scams in 2023. In the first half of 2024 alone, nearly $23 million has been lost to romance scammers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cybersecurity experts warn that fraudsters often target lonely individuals online, starting friendships and eventually requesting financial help with promises to repay. Once money is sent, it\u2019s almost impossible to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reflecting on her experience, Anne said, \u201cI\u2019m very hurt\u2026 I could have been doing so much with my money, but now it\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Brampton woman named Anne is heartbroken after losing her life savings of more than $200,000 to a romance scam that spanned nearly two years. Anne first connected with the scammer through a friend request from a man claiming to be looking for friendship. \u201cHe seemed like a very nice person, always saying I sounded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[193,122,116,174],"tags":[82,197,159,109],"class_list":["post-4879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-online-scam","category-romance-scams","category-scammer-news","category-social-media-scam","tag-online-scams","tag-romance-scam","tag-romance-scammer","tag-scam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879","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=4879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4881,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions\/4881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}