A 75-year-old pensioner shared the gut-wrenching moment he lost all of his life savings as a result of a scam.
The man, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Wall Street Journal how he connected with a woman online who claimed she was a 37-year-old Chinese woman living in San Francisco.
She complimented his LinkedIn profile before creating a bond through food and travel interests.
In text messages obtained by Unilad, the man professed his love for the woman after she promised that the pair would be “very happy in the future”.
“Maybe because I’ve had a few glasses of wine with my friend, that’s why I say this,” she continued in one of the messages. “But I really thank God for letting me meet you.”
Once the two had made that initial connection, the scammer started telling the man about her ‘uncle’s’ company which she made a small fortune on.
And over the course of several months, she managed to convince the man to transfer over his entire life savings – a staggering $715,000 – into a fake trading return.
The woman promised that they would marry and live together using the returns on his investment.
She kept on telling the man to ‘trust me’ and when he did ever question her, she guilt-tripped him.
For example, one particular text message read: “Your distrust of me once again made me feel the fickleness of men.”
Another message from her reads: “I think all my good intentions and sincerity has been let down. I just want to complete our future goals and plans.”
But once the transfer was complete, the pensioner never heard from the woman again, and his money was gone.
After a heartbreaking series of unanswered texts, the last he heard from her was a text in September saying she didn’t ‘want to have anything to do’ with him anymore, adding that his ‘mind is horrible’.
He has since come to terms with the fact that he won’t get his money back and fell victim to a horrible scam.
The man has also reported the incident to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center which will review the case.