Cecilie Fjellhoy, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte – have started a fundraiser.
Victims of the now infamous “Tinder Swindler” are reclaiming what they lost through a GoFundMe page.
After a Netflix documentary described how Simon Leviev tricked women he’d met on Tinder into giving him money, the three most prominent individuals – Cecilie Fjellhoy, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte – started a fundraiser that has already raised around £56,000 ( $75,000). That’s more than the 150,000 shekels ($47,000) Leviev had to pay to his victims in a 2020 Israeli court order — one of the few consequences he faced for his actions.
The scam, which is estimated to have stolen $10 million from victims, exploded on social media this week, sparking outrage that Leviev is currently a free man after five months in prison for his crimes. Online fraud is nothing new, but the daring tactics Leviev used — such as claiming to be the chief executive officer of a diamond company under threat from violent enemies — and his social media tactics encompass today’s fast-paced, digital age where it’s never been easier to immediately thousands of dollars to send.
Fjellhoy, Sjoholm and Charlotte started GoFundMe because “a lot of people reached out to us asking if we had one, and it hadn’t occurred to us to create one before,” the women wrote in the fundraiser’s description. . “The pure love is more than we ever expected, and we really appreciate you all.”
Their goal is to raise £600,000. Sjoholm told GQ Leviev stole between £50,000 and £60,000 from her, and she is now bankrupt and living with her mother. Fjellhoy was left with more than £200,000 in debt.
Leviev – who previously went through Shimon Hayut – is now blocked from Tinder, but according to the Netflix documentary, he still lives in luxury with a private jet and new girlfriend.
His victims are far from alone. According to the Federal Trade Commission, romantic scammers stole a record $304 million in 2020, a 50% increase from the previous year.
Proponents are calling for more dedicated efforts to stop these crimes, especially as the pandemic has made virtual communication more common.
“It encourages people to do it because so few scammers actually get caught,” said Debby Montgomery Johnson, director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams and a survivor of an online romance scam. “Governments don’t understand how big this problem is.”
Indeed, some scammers see an opportunity in everything. Multiple fake GoFundMe pages have surfaced claiming to support Leviev’s victims.
“We’ve seen a lot of fakes, which makes us uncomfortable,” the women wrote on their page. “We don’t want more people to be scammed.”
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
