A grandmother widowed after 51 years of marriage has told how she was cruelly scammed out of £250,000 after using online dating to lift herself out of loneliness. Elizabeth Ferguson, a retired senior university manager and businesswoman, was tricked into handing over her life savings by a man posing as a lovelorn telecoms expert, the Mirror reports.
Elizabeth, 79, a mother of two with four grandchildren, said: "I still can't believe the nightmare I lived through."
In April 2022, three years after the death of husband George and desperate to quell her loneliness, she joined dating site Match. Almost immediately she saw Courtney Roy.
READ MORE:She said: "His profile said he was 68 and his interests included nature, travel and volunteering. His photos showed a normal, good-looking man, and he said he lived in Dublin. He seemed like someone I could have a conversation with. "
As they chatted on WhatsApp, he told Elizabeth, who lives near Dublin, that he had divorced his cheating wife, and claimed he was raised by his grandparents in Cyprus after losing his parents in a car accident . She says: "This was part of the scam. Not only to gain my sympathy, but also to explain errors in his written English."
Sharing details about her own life, Elizabeth says, "I felt the bond growing. Courtney responded to my photos by saying I was beautiful. His interest was absolutely flattering." After he suggested meeting her, they had their first video call. She says: "It was almost impossible to see or hear him, but it didn't seem strange. The connections could be bad anywhere."
Just as they were about to meet, he said he had to travel urgently to install a 5G network on a Japanese oil rig in the North Sea. Elizabeth admits, "I was disappointed. My life was busy, but Courtney brought another aspect." Then he made a bizarre suggestion. She says: "He told me to buy a black T-shirt and men's cologne, which cost me £160. I had to spray it on the shirt and wear it to bed, listening to a song he sent, to keep me connected to feel with him."
"He sent pictures of him on the oil rig in protective gear and arrived by helicopter. They amplified everything. I had no reason to doubt this busy, successful man who I was starting to fall for was who he said he was." now the scammer was ready to get Elizabeth's money. She says: "The first step was a message saying he needed $70,000 for expensive equipment. He didn't ask me for money, but to log into his bank account and make the transfer as his signal was terrible. It was a sign of his trust in me."
When she saw that there was a balance of $1.45 million in the account, she transferred the $70,000 for him. She says, "He was so grateful. So when he messaged that he needed another $7,000 to cover the transfer costs, and asked me to do the same again, I agreed." But that transfer failed and he explained something about an IP address, saying he no longer had access to his account and asking Elizabeth to use her own money instead.
She says, "I had a flash of doubt. Then I remembered the amount in his account, and $7,000 didn't seem huge. Then he sent a photo of himself with a card that said, 'Please help me, I promise. ' will never regret it." Elizabeth sent the money through a cryptocurrency site. She says, "He told me how much he cared about me, what an incredible woman I was, and I believed him. That's why what happened next was so scary."
Courtney reported that an explosion on the rig had endangered him and a colleague and sent a video allegedly showing the accident. She says, "I was so worried, so when he asked me to send more money, I was so panicked that I did. I used a crypto app that he told me to download." Just as Elizabeth began to have doubts, a courier arrived with what appeared to be a bank draft for €950,000 in Courtney's name.
She says: "He hit me with a combination of 'I love you, I'm in danger, and here's proof of all the money I have'. It was a powerful combination and it worked." As his requests for money increased, Elizabeth turned to family and friends for loans, saying it involved work on her house. She admits, "I hated lying." And the stress took its toll. She says: "I stopped sleeping and eating, I lost a stone. I was stuck."
'I've already sent him so much. If I refused a request, he might not come to activate the bank draft, I would lose everything." When she expressed doubts, Courtney became verbally aggressive. She says, "He accused me of being bipolar. He was manipulative." Finally, after she sent £245,027 in crypto payments, he told her he was flying home from Japan on December 30, 2022. She recalls, "I was relieved when I got a copy of his e-ticket."
But on the day he was due to fly, he sent a message to say drugs had been stuffed in his bag and he needed £20,000 for a lawyer. Elizabeth says, "The scales fell from my eyes. It was all a lie. He denied it, but I knew I had been tricked into giving him almost a quarter of a million pounds. It is impossible to describe the shock and guilt I felt. I had lost my children's inheritance. For someone as educated as I am, it was completely humiliating to fall for something like that."
Her family was shocked, hurt that she lied, but mostly furious on her behalf. They noticed that some of the photos had been manipulated. We discovered they belong to Canadian actor Ian Simpson, who starred in a US tour of Mamma Mia! Elizabeth says, "The scammer stole all the photos they needed to convince me." Family members also discovered that the oil rig explosion was a common hoax.
After the police and Action Fraud were unable to help, Elizabeth faced financial ruin until a family member put her in touch with CEL Solicitors. She says: "I had no idea that institutions like banks had an obligation to protect customers, that a lawyer could hopefully get my money back." She also contacted Match, who deleted the scammer's profile so the photos reappeared under a different name. She says, "How can we know who's real?" In January this year, Elizabeth's lawyers informed her that they had recovered £252,000. But the emotional impact is still deep.
She says: "I never want this to happen to anyone else. This man is still out there, he could be doing this to multiple women now. Romance fraud really does destroy lives." Match told us: "We are continually refining our technologies to identify and prevent fraudulent activity." The agent of Ian Simpson, whose photos were used in the scam, says she receives monthly messages that his photos are being misused without his knowledge or consent. She adds: "The irony is that Ian is part of the LGBTQ+ community. He and his partner have been together for years."
