Online dating scam warning signs (DAVID HEMENWAY / Courier Graphic Artist)
WATERLOO, Iowa --- His name was Mark, or at least that's what he told her.
"He was good looking. His picture was, anyway," said the retired Waterloo nurse. She found Mark through an online dating service in January.
The picture he posted was a professional shot, like one might find of in the back of a hardcover novel showing the author.
The story he told her was fascinating.
But by April it was clear the tale Mark was spinning was fiction, and the 58-year-old woman, who asked not to be identified for reasons that will soon become evident, had lost more than $138,000 of her savings to a scam.
"It sucked me in, and I wanted to believe so much," she said.
The woman came forward to describe her ordeal in hopes that other vulnerable people won't fall for the same trap.
"Believe me, you are better off alone," she said.
Capt. Tim Pillack with the Waterloo Police Department confirmed investigators are looking into the con, which involved the woman sending tens of thousands of dollars in cashiers checks and using money transfer companies.
Experts say the scam is common, a variation of schemes that use fake Nigerian oil ministers or bogus sweepstakes. The only difference is the payoff for the victims is supposed to be romance, not lottery winnings.
According to a recently released FBI Internet crime report, authorities looked into 5,668 romance scams in 2011 with losses totaling $50 million. It was the fourth most commonly reported scheme behind work-at-home scams, loan scams and FBI agent impersonation.
"A lot of it we don't hear about, but the matters of the heart where emotions come into play, that's a strong situation," said Al Perales, an investigator with the Iowa Attorney General's Office Consumer Protection Division. "Scammers are all about human nature."
Perales has seen an increase in con artists using dating sites over the past three years, and most are targeting older residents.
The usual scheme involves hooking the victim using kind words and a photograph pilfered from social media or business profile websites.
A newer hook involves scammers claiming to be soldiers, said Frank Kiouna, who helps run RomanceScam.Com, a service to track fraud started in 2005.
In some cases the thief will ask for cash to cover travel expenses, medical bills or some other emergency. He or she may send the victim a check, asking to have it cashed and the money wired back. The check turns out to be counterfeit, and the bank takes the missing money from the victim's account.
"If the first money request has success, then they know they can try again," Kiouna said.
Mark said he was a soccer scout who lived in Nebraska and traveled the world with big bucks to recruit players for the L.A. Galaxy team. He was also planning to build a soccer camp in Nebraska.
The woman said it wasn't the money that drew her in --- she had a comfortable nest egg from savings and an inheritance --- nor was it his face.
She had lived in Nebraska, her father was from there, and she cherished the thought of someday returning to live in the state.
She was starting to develop Parkinson's disease and wasn't looking forward to growing old alone.
Mark, it seemed, was willing to look past her foibles.
They emailed each other and talked on the phone but never met in person.
He said he took off to Malaysia to scout players there and had a $6 million budget. What he didn't spend to sign the players was his to keep.
But he said he was only given a portion of the money to work with, and after three weeks, he needed money to pay taxes and seal the deal. Could she loan him $65,000?
She agreed, and after the first loan, other expenses kept popping up. The woman was concerned that if she didn't pay, Mark would lose the deal, and she wouldn't get her money back.
"It just snowballed, and I kept sending more and more," she said.
Eventually, her bank became suspicious and wouldn't let her wire from her account because it smelled like a scam. Then services like Western Union blocked her for the same reasons.
Relatives and friends warned her, and the woman admitted there were other red flags.
Mark spoke with what he claimed was an inherited accent acquired from Kentucky and Oxford or growing up with Italians and Jamaicans. Police would later tell her it was likely Russian.
One of Mark's associates, who claimed to work for the Galaxy team, wrote in shattered grammar, at one point explaining the "paper works" that needed to be completed to move the money.
And aside from the book-jacket style profile portrait, there were no other pictures, no casual snapshots or vacation pictures. Of course, there couldn't be if the photo was of someone else.
The biggest clue, experts said, was the fact he asked for money.
In the back of her mind, she thought it was likely a scam. But she was torn. There was always the chance it wasn't, and if she didn't continue to help she might not get her money back.
The victim began to admit to herself what she had long suspected during Mark's last request for cash.
He was supposed to fly back to the states so they could sign an agreement that would get her on the path to recovering what she had invested. First he needed a plane ticket and money for other expenses.
But the wiring service had locked her out, so she went to her bank in hopes of getting a cashiers check to send to one of Mark's associates in Florida who could forward the money.
The bank teller refused to sell her the check and called the bank manager in on her day off. In the discussion that followed, the woman broke down, spilling her whole story to the manager.
"It was a huge weight off my shoulders," the woman said.
After she quit sending money, Mark mailed her a $55,000 check and asked her to send back a portion of it. Authorities checked with the bank that allegedly issued it and discovered it was bogus before any money changed hands.
Resigned to the fact she won't recover her losses, the woman has changed her phone number and email addresses. She also entered an identity theft protection program because one of the wire transfers had her Social Security number on it.
But she hasn't given up on finding Mr. Right.
"People say don't stop trusting others," she said.
She met another person through an Internet dating service, and they went on a real date.
Part of Perales' job at the Consumer Protection Division involves talking to relatives of victims who want to help victims see the light.
"They have tunnel vision, and they don't pay attention to all the red flags around them because they are in love," Perales said.
He suggests quizzing the supposed love interest during a phone call. If he says he's from the United States, ask something that should be common knowledge to average Americans. If he says he's a doctor, he should know what a patella is.
When a victim swears the online friend is for real, Perales suggests a friend give him a ring.
Kiouna said there are also a number technological checks one can run. For instance, run the email address through a search engine, or do the same with any poetry they send. Chances are an anti-scam website has it cataloged.
Relationship scams can be reported to the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov or 1 (877) 382-4357, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov, or local police.
"He was good looking. His picture was, anyway," said the retired Waterloo nurse. She found Mark through an online dating service in January.
The picture he posted was a professional shot, like one might find of in the back of a hardcover novel showing the author.
The story he told her was fascinating.
But by April it was clear the tale Mark was spinning was fiction, and the 58-year-old woman, who asked not to be identified for reasons that will soon become evident, had lost more than $138,000 of her savings to a scam.
"It sucked me in, and I wanted to believe so much," she said.
The woman came forward to describe her ordeal in hopes that other vulnerable people won't fall for the same trap.
"Believe me, you are better off alone," she said.
Capt. Tim Pillack with the Waterloo Police Department confirmed investigators are looking into the con, which involved the woman sending tens of thousands of dollars in cashiers checks and using money transfer companies.
Experts say the scam is common, a variation of schemes that use fake Nigerian oil ministers or bogus sweepstakes. The only difference is the payoff for the victims is supposed to be romance, not lottery winnings.
According to a recently released FBI Internet crime report, authorities looked into 5,668 romance scams in 2011 with losses totaling $50 million. It was the fourth most commonly reported scheme behind work-at-home scams, loan scams and FBI agent impersonation.
"A lot of it we don't hear about, but the matters of the heart where emotions come into play, that's a strong situation," said Al Perales, an investigator with the Iowa Attorney General's Office Consumer Protection Division. "Scammers are all about human nature."
Perales has seen an increase in con artists using dating sites over the past three years, and most are targeting older residents.
The usual scheme involves hooking the victim using kind words and a photograph pilfered from social media or business profile websites.
A newer hook involves scammers claiming to be soldiers, said Frank Kiouna, who helps run RomanceScam.Com, a service to track fraud started in 2005.
In some cases the thief will ask for cash to cover travel expenses, medical bills or some other emergency. He or she may send the victim a check, asking to have it cashed and the money wired back. The check turns out to be counterfeit, and the bank takes the missing money from the victim's account.
"If the first money request has success, then they know they can try again," Kiouna said.
Mark said he was a soccer scout who lived in Nebraska and traveled the world with big bucks to recruit players for the L.A. Galaxy team. He was also planning to build a soccer camp in Nebraska.
The woman said it wasn't the money that drew her in --- she had a comfortable nest egg from savings and an inheritance --- nor was it his face.
She had lived in Nebraska, her father was from there, and she cherished the thought of someday returning to live in the state.
She was starting to develop Parkinson's disease and wasn't looking forward to growing old alone.
Mark, it seemed, was willing to look past her foibles.
They emailed each other and talked on the phone but never met in person.
He said he took off to Malaysia to scout players there and had a $6 million budget. What he didn't spend to sign the players was his to keep.
But he said he was only given a portion of the money to work with, and after three weeks, he needed money to pay taxes and seal the deal. Could she loan him $65,000?
She agreed, and after the first loan, other expenses kept popping up. The woman was concerned that if she didn't pay, Mark would lose the deal, and she wouldn't get her money back.
"It just snowballed, and I kept sending more and more," she said.
Eventually, her bank became suspicious and wouldn't let her wire from her account because it smelled like a scam. Then services like Western Union blocked her for the same reasons.
Relatives and friends warned her, and the woman admitted there were other red flags.
Mark spoke with what he claimed was an inherited accent acquired from Kentucky and Oxford or growing up with Italians and Jamaicans. Police would later tell her it was likely Russian.
One of Mark's associates, who claimed to work for the Galaxy team, wrote in shattered grammar, at one point explaining the "paper works" that needed to be completed to move the money.
And aside from the book-jacket style profile portrait, there were no other pictures, no casual snapshots or vacation pictures. Of course, there couldn't be if the photo was of someone else.
The biggest clue, experts said, was the fact he asked for money.
In the back of her mind, she thought it was likely a scam. But she was torn. There was always the chance it wasn't, and if she didn't continue to help she might not get her money back.
The victim began to admit to herself what she had long suspected during Mark's last request for cash.
He was supposed to fly back to the states so they could sign an agreement that would get her on the path to recovering what she had invested. First he needed a plane ticket and money for other expenses.
But the wiring service had locked her out, so she went to her bank in hopes of getting a cashiers check to send to one of Mark's associates in Florida who could forward the money.
The bank teller refused to sell her the check and called the bank manager in on her day off. In the discussion that followed, the woman broke down, spilling her whole story to the manager.
"It was a huge weight off my shoulders," the woman said.
After she quit sending money, Mark mailed her a $55,000 check and asked her to send back a portion of it. Authorities checked with the bank that allegedly issued it and discovered it was bogus before any money changed hands.
Resigned to the fact she won't recover her losses, the woman has changed her phone number and email addresses. She also entered an identity theft protection program because one of the wire transfers had her Social Security number on it.
But she hasn't given up on finding Mr. Right.
"People say don't stop trusting others," she said.
She met another person through an Internet dating service, and they went on a real date.
Part of Perales' job at the Consumer Protection Division involves talking to relatives of victims who want to help victims see the light.
"They have tunnel vision, and they don't pay attention to all the red flags around them because they are in love," Perales said.
He suggests quizzing the supposed love interest during a phone call. If he says he's from the United States, ask something that should be common knowledge to average Americans. If he says he's a doctor, he should know what a patella is.
When a victim swears the online friend is for real, Perales suggests a friend give him a ring.
Kiouna said there are also a number technological checks one can run. For instance, run the email address through a search engine, or do the same with any poetry they send. Chances are an anti-scam website has it cataloged.
Relationship scams can be reported to the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov or 1 (877) 382-4357, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov, or local police.
