- Jia presented herself to him as having “inside information.”
- The lady urged Tom to keep investing in the shady software.
A guy in the United Kingdom was apparently duped out of over $200,000 of his life savings by a lady he met online. After the hustle, the guy stated that he contemplated suicide.
Tom (not his actual name) was in the midst of a breakup in 2020 and turned to a dating app searching for companionship, as reported by the BBC. Soon after, he was contacted by a lady from Hong Kong named Jia, and the two exchanged messages.
Dream of Prosperous Life
According to Tom, he and his online date had been talking about the future of their relationship. As a successful cryptocurrency trader, Jia presented herself to him as having insider information and therefore persuaded him to dream of a prosperous life with her.
The man admitted:
“Issues were flagging up to me, but everything she was doing to build up trust with me was enough to keep me there.”
Again, Tom was skeptical but at the same time considered himself fortunate since he seemed to have a source of “insider knowledge” through Jia. The lady urged Tom to keep investing in the shady software, warning him that he would lose out on rewards if he didn’t act quickly enough. When the man discovered that his balance “had been cleared,” it was too late, and he ended up investing about $200,000.
He pressed Jia to explain the disappearance of the funds, but she refused, claiming she had to go to Australia to be with her ailing aunt for a few weeks. A crypto fraud had struck, and Tom knew it at that time.
