Greg's Corner

Man taken in inheritance romance scam for $43,000

A man in Northern Virginia recently reported to local police that he was fleeced out of $43,000 in a romance scam. In this particular scam, the scammers posed as a Russian woman on a dating site. While the scammers communicated with the man over text and email, they went the extra mile by communicating with the man by phone. That’s almost unheard of in romance scams as in most cases the scammers don’t want to leave any potentially identifying information. Like in almost all romance scams, there came an event that supposedly required a large sum of money.

In this instance, the scammer said that they had received an inheritance of ‘family valuables’. However, in order to get the inheritance, they would need money for transfer fees. The victim is even said to have received a ‘certificate of ownership for an inheritance.’ As reprehensible as these scammers are, they really pulled out all the stops for this particular scam. In total, the man wired $43,000 to the scammers before he came to realization that he was being scammed. Unfortunately, this type of romance scam is not unheard of. Along with the romantic interest the victim thinks they’re getting, the scammers will sometimes throw in an element of a get rich quick scheme. We’ve seen this before where victims were offered gold or jewels if they just send their phony paramours a large sum of money to get the supposed riches out of their country. Of course, these treasures don’t actually exist.

As we usually say at the end of romance scam stories, this can happen to just about anyone. Victims from all age groups, socioeconomic statuses, and education levels have fallen for romance scams. From CEOs to entry-level employees, the romance scam does not discriminate against any of its victims. If you or someone you know is involved with someone online that you haven’t met face to face yet, you should be very suspicious if they start asking for money. If you think someone you know may be the target of a romance scam, please show them the FTC’s website about romance scams and/or our posts about romance scams.