Police: Online scammer bilked Loyalhanna woman out of $45K

It started with some messages exchanged with a new Facebook connection.

A 60-year-old Loyalhanna Township woman believed she was talking to a man in Denmark. He told her he needed some money to help his daughter, who supposedly was attending a private school in West Africa, according to state police.

So she gave it to him, again and again.

During the next four to five months, she spent $45,000 on gift cards and provided him the numbers through WhatsApp, a smartphone messaging service, said Trooper Gregory Frank. The man eventually ended contact with her and deleted his social media presence.

She realized she had been scammed and reported the situation to police in December, Frank said.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, gift cards are a popular way for scammers to get money. In a 2018 report, scammers were increasingly asking for payment by gift cards during the previous few years.

The commission also said victims who get caught up in romance-related scams are likely to lose more money than other consumer fraud types. The commission got more than 21,000 romance-related scams in 2018 with losses of $143 million. The number of reports of this type of scam more than doubled and the amount of money lost quadrupled since 2015, according to the commission.

The commission warned consumers to never send money to anyone they haven’t met in person. Frank cautioned consumers to be wary of anyone they meet online and other scams, such as callers asking for a Social Security number or gift card payment to get out of an arrest warrant.

Investigators don’t have much to go on in this case, he said. Anyone with information is asked to call state police at Kiski Valley at 724-697-5780.