Peter called Liveline today to tell Joe about an experience which left him “devastated”. He was scammed out of just over €11,000 by a person he met on a dating website. He thought he was talking to a woman named Ekaterina and that they were beginning a relationship.
“She contacted me through a dating website first and then she used to send over demands for money for passports. We were talking for a couple of months and all that, doing email and all and she’d phone me then, she’d have a problem and she’d give me the details to send it [money] over there through Western Union. And she‘d want a certain amount sent over and then after that then, maybe a couple of weeks later, she’d come again…another problem would come up then.“
The scam had a certain level of sophistication, even involving a fraudulent “travel website” through which Peter paid for tickets for the woman he thought he was dating. She would ring him with a crisis, “crying down the phone”. The largest single amount he sent her was €4200. As he grew more and more suspicious, a google search confirmed his fear that he had been conned,
“When I looked it up online after a couple of months, I could see other lads were saying keep away from her and all this…they’d been scammed the very same way…I thought everything was just going beautifully and was just devastated then when it didn't work out.”
When Joe asked Peter if he would consider trying dating websites again in the future, Peter was pessimistic.
“I’ll tell you the truth, joe. I won't be going near any more websites, I just don’t trust them.”
A caller into the show, Thomas, brought some hope to Peter’s situation. Last year, Western Union forfeited $586m in funds and set up a way of applying for remission if you feel you have been the victim of fraud through their transfer service.
Listen back to the whole discussion on Liveline here.