A woman from Sussex was conned out of hundreds of thousands of pounds by a man she met online and who she imagined a life with.
Susan, from Sussex, was targeted by romance fraudsters after having recovered from a difficult marriage.
In her 50s, divorced with two children, she began to explore the idea of online dating.
“I was finally ready to meet someone new,” she said.
She eventually met a man online, and they quickly started to develop a close relationship spending hours speaking on the phone.
However, after just a few weeks, Susan received the first request for money.
Her suitor claimed he needed financial help to get him out of a tough spot with a business matter.
But not long after, he began requesting more money, this time for repatriation costs following the supposed death of a family member.
Over the course of a few years, Susan ended up giving hundreds of thousands of pounds to the man, under the impression that the pair were going to be together, and he would eventually pay her back.
Discovering that the man she had imagined a life with was not who he claimed to be was hheartbreaking
“I felt a huge sense of loss, not just from the money, but from the emotional loss of losing the man that I loved with all my heart,” she said.
“To make matters worse, he never truly existed. I had no chance of getting any closure.”
Once Susan reported her experience to Action Fraud, she received a visit from…
