A woman who was searching for love online was scammed into sending money to a man on Tinder. It all began when Sophie James swiped right on a tall, dark and handsome man called Tom on Tinder last year.
Sophie, 27, and Tom hit it off immediately. They had similar interests in music and films, so before long they exchanged numbers and began sending one another voice notes.
After about a month of speaking, the hairdresser from Manchester began to wonder if she'd found 'the one'. But it'd soon come to light that 'Tom' wasn't real and she was talking to a fake profile.
Tom told her he was taking a trip to London for his work as a graphic designer. He told her that his bank card had been blocked and asked Sophie to transfer him £198 for a last-minute train back to Manchester.
Sophie agreed and sent over the cash. Just minutes later, Tom blocked her.
Subscribe here for the latest news where you live
Speaking exclusively to the Manchester Evening News, she said: “It was around a month into talking and he said he was in London for work. He was a graphic designer working for himself.
“One evening I got a message saying, ‘You'll never believe this, as I'm freelance, my bank has blocked my cards as I've been receiving international monies from clients, so annoying when you're at the station!'
“I didn't even think. I was like, ‘Oh my God, are you okay? Can I do anything?’
“His response was pretty genuine. He went on to say, ‘I couldn't possibly ask you to deal with this mess, I'm trying to get hold of my brother who is away to send me some money’.
“After a month of talking and really getting to know each other, I just replied, ‘Ahh that’s fine, how much do you need? I can send it across and you can transfer it back to me when you’re home.
“He said as it was a last-minute train, it would be £198 for him to get home. I did think it was weird, but I was so blinded by the connection we had. Once I sent it, he replied saying ‘thanks so much’ and blocked me.”
Sophie says she has been left “devastated” by the scam – with the incident putting her off online dating altogether.
“I want other women to be aware of this,” she continued. “But also do not send money. I feel like it's my own fault, but at the same time, these people shouldn't be allowed.
“He was definitely my type – dark hair, strong manly features with a nice length of beard. We started talking and within a few hours I thought he was definitely a nice guy.
“I'm not really the type to get on FaceTime but we exchanged voice notes and he seemed really genuine. It just didn’t cross my mind that it could be fake.
“I was devastated and it's definitely put me off online dating. I just feel very lied to and deceived which is silly as we only spoke for a month or so.”
A Tinder spokesperson said: "We are saddened to hear of anyone who has fallen victim to a romance scam when seeking a real connection. We have a zero-tolerance policy on this type of behaviour and are constantly monitoring our platform to detect and remove any suspicious profiles.
"We take our members’ safety seriously. If a member contacts us to report any bad online or offline behaviour, our team carefully reviews the report and takes the necessary action to remove any inappropriate profile from our platform. If a crime has been committed, we encourage members to report it to local law enforcement.
"Our dedicated team will cooperate with law enforcement if they are contacted directly. We also encourage our members to review our safety tips, which can be found on our website and accessed through the app."
Research conducted by data experts Geonode recently found romance scams are at an all-time high – with those aged between 18 and 29 being most at risk. The data, which was gathered by figures published by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, found that romance scams cost Brits an astonishing £97 million each year on average.
The research found that men are four times more likely to be scammed compared to women, with scammers using Tinder to target victims the most. Manchester, Brighton and Edinburgh were also revealed as scamming hot spots, with those areas having more romance scam reports than anywhere else in the UK.
