An online acquaintance ended in financial disaster for a 73-year-old Styrian woman: a fraudster cleverly vied for the woman’s affection on Facebook and tricked her into tens of thousands of euros with lies.
It probably started with an innocuous message on Facebook: A 73-year-old woman from the Graz area was contacted by an unknown person and apparently cleverly enticed. The cheater – or cheaters – manipulated the woman and thus won her affection. Typical scam: alleged hardship “The Frenchman supposedly living in Poland was a businessman and would trade in cocoa. “He would be in a hospital and would urgently need money,” that’s what one of the scams would have looked like, says the Styria State Police Department. The woman believed the fraudster and transferred money to different accounts several times. According to the police, the damage amounts to tens of thousands of euros. The contacts lasted from April 2023 to February 2024, and the woman has now filed a complaint. When love is blind. This form of online fraud is called a “love scam”. The victim is involved in an affair and is subsequently financially exploited. Contact is made primarily on social media platforms such as Facebook. It usually follows the same pattern: first, the fraudsters build trust, and meetings are often arranged but never take place. The perpetrators then usually fake an emergency situation (they have been robbed, their child has suddenly become seriously ill or something similar) and asks for financial help.
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