Have you ever received a text message that seemed too good to be true? One 75-year-old man certainly did, and unfortunately, it ended up costing him his entire $715K life savings. It all started with a seemingly innocent message from a scammer and that was it!
The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, thought he was on the right path to finding love but little did he know, he was falling victim to a ruthless scam that would leave him devastated and financially ruined.
As a result of this heartbreaking deception, the man was left with nothing but regret and a deep sense of betrayal. He had worked his entire life to save up that money, only to have it stolen from right under his nose by someone he thought he could trust. The sense of loss and injustice he now feels is immeasurable, and the emotional toll of being taken advantage of in such a cruel manner is something that will stay with him for a long time.
The scam began in May last year when a woman posing as a lonely but successful Chinese 37-year-old woman living in San Francisco messaged him on LinkedIn.
Over the next three months, she convinced him to transfer his entire life savings into a fake trading platform, promising that they would be able to get married and live together using the returns on his investment.
Once he had exhausted all of his – and his partner’s – assets, the woman stopped replying to his messages and his money was gone.
The man is a 75-year-old professional living in the American Midwest.
He is one of millions of people globally to be targeted in so-called pig butchering scams where strangers seduce vulnerable and lonely people online, building trust and convincing them to put money into fake schemes.
Once they have taken the money, the scammers – who mostly pose as beautiful young women – disappear.
In reality, many of the scammers are men based in compounds run by Chinese criminal syndicates in parts of Southeast Asia and West Africa, according to The Journal.
Many of the scammers are themselves victims of trafficking and are trained and given phones and scripts to follow with their targets under the threat of violence.
In this case, the woman contacted the man via LinkedIn, exchanging pleasantries before suggesting they move to WhatsApp.
The man told her he had a modest retirement fund but still worked full-time and lived with his partner of 40 years, who he said he had grown apart from.
She sent him photos of ‘herself’ at luxury restaurants, shopping and traveling and told him that she had moved to the US from China eight years earlier.
She said she was lonely and longed for a companion and was just looking for true love.
They bonded over their love of food, travel, fitness and pets and she sent him detailed descriptions of her meals and workouts.
They had a few brief voice calls and one video call early on – likely taken by a model in one of the compounds – but then communicated solely over text.
Once they had built up a rapport, she started telling him about her ‘uncle’s’ company, which she said made a fortune trading gold future on a platform called FX6.
Over the next three months, she manipulated and cajoled the man into transferring $715,000 to the platform, which then vanished.
She talked him through setting up an account and transferring the money, promising: ‘We will be very happy in the future… I really thank God for letting me meet you.’
In between reassuring him that he could ‘trust me’ the pair planned a road trip together that she said they could take using the returns on his investments.
When he doubted her or questioned why he needed to transfer the money, she guilt-tripped him, saying: ‘Your distrust of me once again made me feel the fickleness of men’.
As the amounts he was transferring to the scheme increased, his bank started warning him he could be the victim of the scam, but with her help he ignored the bank and kept making bigger payments.
He sold his stocks and took out a loan all to meet the growing payments.
Then, when he said he had nothing left to invest, she vanished.
He sent her desperate messages, begging her to respond and explain what had happened.
In one, he said: ‘Do me a favor and just shoot me. I have nothing to live for. No money, no family, and no soul mate.’
She didn’t respond.
He reported her to the FBI but nothing has come of his report, the FBI told The Journal that the complaints are reviewed and forwarded to relevant law enforcement agencies.
He has not got any of his money back and has finally accepted that it was a scam.
Now he wants to raise awareness of the schemes and how easy it is to be targeted. He told The Journal: ‘She hooked me.’
The sickening text messages that cost this man his entire life savings are a tragic example of the damage that scammers can cause. It’s a cautionary tale for us all to be diligent and skeptical when it comes to our finances, and to never let our guard down in the face of tempting but ultimately too-good-to-be-true offers.
Flip to the next page for the text messages…
