Man warns of internet "love" scam

Internet dating? 'Don"t touch it!' That"s the warning from a 49 year old Westmeath resident, who was scammed for €45,000 after getting involved in what he believed was a genuine online romance.The man, 'Joe', who is not originally Irish, is in shock himself at having fallen for the scam - but is now aware that the scammers used classic fraud techniques to 'groom' him and steal from him.'I can"t believe I was so stupid,' he admits.As a result, he"s now living on the breadline, and trying to repay €25,000 he borrowed from friends to give to the woman he believed genuinely liked him.The story began just after Joe moved out of the family home after his marriage to his Irish wife broke down; and he was at his lowest ebb.Desperately lonely, with no family in this country, missing his four children, and with his confidence having taken a knock-back, Joe logged onto a dating site on the internet and got chatting with 'Matilda', a nurse from Ghana. She wrote flattering things to him, and was soon declaring her love for him.Matilda told him her late father had been Irish, and that she longed to see the place of her father"s birth. Joe suggested she applied for a visa - and that"s when the first mention of money came up: she didn"t have the money to get one she said.'She said that if I could help her out she would pay me when she was working in Ireland. I agreed to these conditions.'From then on, over a three month period, Joe kept having to send more money to help Matilda get to Ireland. Firstly, a 'travel agent' called 'Maxwell' said she would need €220 to secure her visa and a passport; a day later he rang back needing €1,500 as Matilda couldn"t, he said, prove her Irish ancestry to the Irish embassy in Ghana (there is actually no Irish embassy in Ghana) - and would therefore need a work visa. Then followed €700 to pay for Matilda"s flights, €1,000 'show money' for entry to Ireland.Just before she was due to leave, there followed a yarn about how her uncle wouldn"t let her leave; then a claim that her mother had given Matilda a 60 kilo gold bar (Joe is adamant that Matilda spoke of a 60 kilo gold bar), as a present for him to thank him for caring for Matilda in Ireland. Joe told Matilda it would be illegal to bring that much gold out of Ghana - but rang the authorities there to enquire how it could be done legally.Despite that, he got a phone call from an emigration officer who claimed to have arrested Matilda as she began her trip to Ireland, and said she was facing 25 years in jail unless Joe came up with €15,000. It was eventually agreed that Joe would send on €8,000 to secure her freedom.Joe asked Matilda to send him copies of the documents issued to her confirming her ownership of the gold bar. He went to Mullingar Garda Station and showed this, and was directed by the Gardaí to the appropriate authorities here who confirmed that if Matilda had the correct ownership document, she should have no difficulty bringing the gold into Ireland, but that on entering the country, she would have to declare it.Things didn"t end there, however. The next day, the emigration officer was back on saying Matilda needed travel documents which would cost €20,000. Not having the money, he told Matilda to travel to him without the gold, and she agreed, but said she needed €900 for a new ticket and €1,000 for 'show money'.Joe paid up, and heard nothing for two days until a Doctor Thomas rang and said Matilda had been admitted to his hospital with a broken arm, having been mugged and had €1,000 stolen from her. He also found her to have an appendix problem which could lead to death. Joe sent on the €2,500 requested.The emigration officer contacted him, and Joe duly sent on the €5,500 demanded by the emigration officer, who said the gold bar could be sent to Ireland via DHL.Matilda - having allegedly been robbed - now needed ticket and 'show money' again: Joe forked out a further €1,640. The next day, he got a call from another emigration officer, saying (again!) Matilda had been arrested with a 6 kg gold bar - and €20,000 was required to get her the correct documents to travel with the gold.Incredibly Joe borrowed two sums of €20,000 from two friends in order to - again - save Matilda from a 25 year jail term.But although he was finally beginning to smell a rat, the story did not end there, as just before Matilda was to get on her flight with the gold, he was told she needed another form from a solicitor. Joe texted Matilda saying he would send no more money until she had arrived in Ireland.'She told me that she would go to her grandmother"s village and leave the gold there. She said that she would then fly to Ireland. "When I get back from the village I will contact you," she said.Joe says he knew 'something was not right', so he contacted the Gardaí and lodged a complaint over the fraud on him, for the amount of €45,000.Joe is horrified at how he was taken in. 'I"m a very helpful kind of person,' he says, adding that the stories were always very believeable. When 'Matilda' was arrested, he could hear genuine airport sounds on the phone, and announcements, and could hear her crying in the background over her arrest.He felt obliged to help out. On top of which, with the break-up of his marriage, he just wasn"t firing on all cylinders.Now having begun reading up on internet scams, now believes that there is a sort of 'mafia' running such frauds from Africa. He is telling his story as he doesn"t want anyone else to get burned as he was. He says that within minutes of his first emailing Matilda, after seeing her photograph on the dating site, he received a return reply - leading him now to believe that the scamsters are just sitting there waiting to entrap people like him.Another bad sign, he now realises, was that she wanted him to write straight away to her private email. A genuine person would wait longer for that, he believes.All the photographs she sent him, which led him to believe she was a normal woman, with a normal job, living a good life, were fakes he now knows.A very honourable man, hardworking, sincere, and a very likeable man, Joe tried doing everything by the book. In a bid to make sure all the paperwork was proper and above board, Joe even spoke to what he believed was the Irish embassy in Ghana - but now realises was a fake number provided by the scamsters; and to the real Ghanaian emigration authorities.'They have no hearts,' he says, adding that all the scamsters want is to take money from gullible and vulnerable people.Photocopies of the Western Union payments made by Joe through the post office in Mullingar add up to €43,860, and charges for transfer of the money amount to a further €1,527.50, making for a total of €45,387.50.Joe has lodged a formal complaint with Gardaí over the entire affair, but accepts it is unlikely anything will come of it, given the distance.He has also lodged photocopies and his testament with highly-placed authorities in his own country, but has been told that they probably won"t be able to achieve anything either.His only hope is that by publicising his experience, someone else may be spared similar heartache and hardship.