A woman based in Perth is forced to live homeless after losing RS 4.3 crore ($ 780,000) in life savings to scammers while they are online looking for love. According to a report in news.com.au, Annette Ford, 57, is now bank surfing in Western Australia and hopes to secure homes in an affordable pension village while the scammers remain free.
Mrs. Ford became a member of the dating pool after her 33-year-old marriage ended in 2018 and her ex-husband continued quickly. Looking for her own love life, she joined a dating site called “Plenty of Fish” where she started talking to a man called “William”.
In the course of a few months, the foreign national succeeded in winning the confidence of Mrs. Ford before she asked her for money. 'Wlliam' said he needed RS 2.75,000 ($ 5,000) because his wallet was stolen in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
“He said he was raid outside the site on which he worked (in Kuala Lumpur) and they took his wallet and his cards,” said Mrs. Ford.
“The following that I know he is in the hospital and I ended up to pay a $ 5000 hospital to an Australian doctor. I (paid). Then there was a hotel account, and he said he could not pay the employees on The site because he had no access to his cards. “
The requests for the money continued and by the time that Mrs. Ford suspected she had been scammed, she had 1.6 crore ($ 300,000) from RS after she had finished her self -managed Superfonds. Despite the reporting of the case to the Australian Federal Police, Mrs. Ford heard nothing back.
Read also | British woman duped RS 98 Lakh in catfish scam by friend of two decades
The second scam
Four years later, Mrs. Ford came across a scammer – this time on Facebook called the name 'Nelson'. The foreign national told her that he lived in Amsterdam and had a friend in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who needed $ 2500 to help with an ongoing investigation.
Aware of the danger, she initially refused, but the stranger told her that she had to deposit money he sent to her to a Bitcoin money machine. Mrs. Ford said there was money in and out of her account that she was not aware of and before she could realize it, her account from RS was 1.5 crore ($ 280,000).
After he has lost everything, Mrs. Ford now begs Australians not to fall prey to such scams. “They say the right things, they wipe you off your feet, but they are going to take your money and they will let you broke,” Mrs Ford warned.
Last month a British woman was scammed from RS 98.5 Lakh (£ 92,300) After a two -decades friend, a catfish ran against her.
