I’m a single mum looking for love on Tinder – but instead I lost my £6,000 life savings to crypto scammer I matched with
A SINGLE mum looking for love on Tinder lost £6,000 of her life savings to a crypto scammer.
Natalie Foster, 42, matched with a man on Tinder called James who who began talking incessantly about crypto.
He convinced Natalie to get a crypto wallet – a virtual wallet which allows you to buy and keep cryptocurrency.
She was convinced to upload money and ‘trade’ crypto – with the scammers initially making it look like she had made profits up to $86,000.
But this quickly dropped to zero before she was able to withdraw any cash – with her losing a total of £6,000.
Natalie, from Winsford, Cheshire, said: “I feel stupid, I feel ridiculous – I can’t believe I’m one of these women I read about in magazines.”
Natalie, who is signed off work due to her MS, said once she matched with “James”, he began being very forward.
She added: “He looked like a really good-looking guy, he had nice dogs, and was being very forward – I wasn’t that into that”.
After a week James brought up that he had an uncle who had made a fortune in the crypto world.
Natalie said: “I’m not a gambler but he was very convincing.
“He told me to put in £300 and then transfer it to a trading platform. I did it and then made £80 profit.”
Natalie then invested another £100 on the trading platform and made another £93 though she would never receive the money.
A few days later, James said that the following evening would be “a very big night.”
She said: “He convinced me to put in even more money, so I put £2,000 down.
“He then said he had been in touch with his uncle who had told him there was a once-in-a-century deal about to go down and I could make 800 per cent profit.”
Natalie then withdrew all the money she had left from her savings and transferred it to the crypto trading account – totalling £3,500.
She was then added to a WhatsApp group with a man purporting to be her Tinder match’s uncle and another person.
According to Natalie, they then did a trade which bagged $86,000 profit on her trading platform account.
When she went to look at it herself it briefly said she had exceeded the amount she could hold in it before her total funds suddenly changed to zero.
Natalie said: “I then contacted customer services who said I owed them 20 per cent tax to a New York bank account totalling £20,000.”
But then James transferred $5,000 into her trading platform account.
Natalie said: “At this point I thought it was still legit but I then talked to my ex partner and he gave me a reality check.
“I realised I had literally fallen for a textbook crypto scam.”
None of the profits from the trades ever went back to her apart from the initial £80 with Natalie losing £6,000 in total.
She then went back to James to confront him about the scam to which he told her to “go and die quickly.”
He then unmatched her and vanished without trace.
Natalie says looking back there were “all these red flags” including James saying he was German, but not having a German accent, and even getting the names of his own pet dogs mixed up while his pictures, Natalie said, were “clearly just downloaded from somewhere online”.
How to spot signs
SOMEONE you have just met either online or in person declares their love for you too quickly.
- Many online tricksters claim to work in the military or medical profession, and need to travel, which gives them excuses why they cannot video-chat or meet in person.
- They often ask for money to help them through time-critical emergencies.
- Most will pull at the heartstrings with stories of death or debt.
- Their pictures are too perfect to believe. Try a Google image search to check whether their photo has been taken from elsewhere.
- They will tell you to be sure to keep your relationship private.
HOW TO GET HELP
- YOU can report romance scams to Action Fraud at actionfraud.police.uk.
- Anna Rowe is co-founder of a site offering advice and support for victims, at lovesaid.org.
- You can see profile pictures used by fraudsters at ScamHaters United, on Facebook and Instagram.
She has since reported what happened to her to Action Fraud and has instructed a solicitor who is hopeful Natalie will be able to get her money back.
Natalie said: “It was my whole life savings which I inherited off my grandad – it’s left me totally distraught.”
It has led to mum-of-three Natalie having suicidal thoughts.
She added: “I just feel stupid and ridiculous.
“It’s so awful – I don’t know how they can do this to to other people”