Sometimes you really have to feel for people who get duped online. It’s a murky underworld of shysters out there, and if you’re not careful it’s very easy to get taken for a ride.

Then there is this story, where the scam seems so simple it is almost difficult to have sympathy for the victim. No one is saying we shouldn’t, but let’s go through the play-by-play of this one and dissect where things went wrong.

Kuo-Sen Liu, who lives in Milnerton, met a woman who went by the name of Joy on the popular dating site Zoosk. Liu initially sent money to Joy so that she could fly down to Cape Town for a job interview as well as sort out her father’s Trust Fund. When Joy failed to board the plane she sent pictures of herself grieving over her ill mother, then requested further funds. Here is News24:

At this stage, she offered him 40% of her father’s Trust Fund, supposedly amounting to $1.5m, which translated to about R15m.

Liu added: “I said I thought I was winning the lottery in a very easy way”…

Alarm bells should definitely start going off around about now. Sometimes when things are too good be true, especially on the interweb…

A bogus agent contacted Liu on behalf of Joy, and a bogus home affairs official falsely informed Liu that R21 740 was needed to ensure safe travel to Joy with the trust money.

Liu paid the money, and a “customs official” undertook to help provide an anti-money-laundering certificate needed to “release” the money for Joy.

For the certificate, the “official” asked for, and was paid, R35 690.

Liu was also duped into paying an additional four amounts – $1 300 (about R 15 896) for stamp duty, and R697 000, R35 000 and R15 000.

It was at this stage that Liu involved law enforcement, with a Nigerian woman called Muyiwa Obafeny arrested and charged with nine counts of fraud, and one of conspiracy to commit fraud.

And hear you were thinking that little itch you had after that Tinder date last week had a rough ending. Come now people, exercise a little caution online. You might also want to hop on THIS TRAIN, kind of takes those would-be scam artists out of the equation.

[source:news24]