Romance Scams: Melbourne woman met Gabriel on a dating site. He drained her bank account and broke her heart, ‘I was smitten’

Melbourne single mum Kate* thought she knew what a scammer looked like.
When she first joined up to the online dating site Zoosk, she was immediately hit on by a man who was “blatantly obvious” in his efforts to scam her, she says.

He asked her to move their chat elsewhere almost immediately, sent her an explicit video and requested one in return.

The man Kate came to know as Gabriel, who she met on Zoosk. The man in the picture above is a hacked account and is in no way connected to any online scam. (Supplied)

It was all good material for a laugh when she caught up with friends.

Then came the man she knew as Gabriel, who she also met on Zoosk last year.

“When I look back on it now, I can see all the obvious things and that’s the hard part,” Kate said. 

“I’m not a stupid person, I’m actually really smart – but this guy was so good.”

Kate and Gabriel spent months just chatting about their lives. 

He told Kate he was an engineer from France who was now living in the Melbourne suburb of Canterbury.

His wife had died when his two daughters were small, he said, and the children were living with his mother in London so he could continue to work.

Like the first guy, Gabriel also suggested they move their conversation to WhatsApp, but not before Kate felt like she knew him.

She had also done her own research on Gabriel.

She did a reverse image search of his photos, and found him on Facebook.

His posts on Facebook went back years. She would later discover it was a hacked account.

Their…

Read more…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *