- Instagram love scam.
- A woman was frauded by a fake ship captain.
- A devastating impact on the woman.
- “It can happen to anyone, so it’s just about being aware.”
A woman met a ship captain online and fell in love with him to the extent of moving in with him onboard. The man turned out to be a scammer, who had made her pay for his daughter school expenses. The devastating impact led her to suicidal thoughts as reported by The Feed.
A simple conversation
When Fay first started an Instagram account, she wasn’t looking for love.
And then a man named Thomas sent her a private message.
As the captain of a ship that primarily travelled between Denmark and the United States, sparking up a conversation – and relationships – with women online was more common for him than it was for Fay.
“The conversation was simple,” she told The Feed-in this animated feature.
Fay had learned the details of Thomas’ life, and he of hers.
Australian love scam
Australians lost more than $130 million to love scams in 2020 and since the pandemic began the rate of online scams is higher than ever.
“We think that the scammers definitely target those who are lonely and that loneliness brings a lot of vulnerability,” Paul Cvejic, the WA ScamNet coordinator at Consumer Protection Western Australia told The Feed.
Thomas Steve would send Fay pictures from his ship; him on it, pictures of his cabin and the open ocean under the stars.
“He said one day, you may end up here,” she told The Feed.
Once the scammer has someone hooked, they often go to extreme lengths to convince their victim of their legitimacy.
Willing to leave everything
In the case of Thomas Steve, he had his daughter “Sonia” speak directly to Fay.
At one point Sonia’s “boarding school principal” even phoned Fay to speak about Sonia, her schooling, and some school expenses Sonia needed to be paid while Thomas was abroad – Fay would go on to send money to Sonia for a $600 birthday cake and a school excursion.
“I was willing to travel,” Fay said of her feelings for Thomas.
“I was willing to pack up everything and just leave everything and go.”
She began looking into visas so she could move to America and be with Thomas – using links to visa lawyers and application portals that Thomas had sent her.
The eye-opener
Paul then asked some probing questions about Fay’s partner – how they met and how their relationship had progressed – which lead him to encourage Fay to allow him to look further into the matter.
“It’s always hard to tell a victim that the person that they’re speaking to doesn’t exist, that the person they think they’re madly in love with isn’t real,” he said.
In the case of Thomas Steve, the scammer was using the profile of a real Danish captain called Thomas – whose real name is Thomas Lindegaard Madsen whose profile has been used so rampantly by scammers that his social media profiles now read “I am gay and happily married” and “I know my picture is used by scammers”.
“Because of everything that was going on I wanted to commit suicide.”
In total Fay lost $10,726.63 to “Thomas Steve”, a modest sum compared to other romance scams.
“It happens every day and we’re not immune to it,” Fay said.
“It can happen to anyone, so it’s just about being aware.”
Name changed to protect the identity
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Source: The Feed
