We were chatting on the phone as he went through the airport terminal. Richard told me that he needed to come back to England to verify who he was and they would immediately unblock his account. I made the first two transfers successfully, but the third transaction was blocked. While I knew he was an architect, and assumed he was probably fairly well off, I had no idea he had this kind of money. When I logged on to make the first transfer, I saw that he had over 9million pounds in his account. This sounded true, because I know English banks only cover you up to around that amount. I was reluctant at first, but I reasoned that the money wasn’t going via my bank account, so I agreed to help.īecause Richard had been defrauded before, he said he would only send 80,000 euros at a time. He gave me his passwords and account details so that I could log on from my computer while he talked me through it all over the phone. Because he was in Cyprus, his bank wasn’t letting him make the payment – 200,000 euros – and he needed somebody in the UK to do it for him. He’d been out there for a couple of weeks when he mentioned that he had a shipment of materials coming from Turkey that he needed to pay for. I logged into his bank account and saw that he had £9million Richard was incredibly sympathetic about my husband, though looking back, I realise that as I had put widowed on my profile, he was just manipulating me from the start.Īfter a few months, Richard told me that he had to go to Cyprus to oversee a building that he was working on. He told me his wife had died and that he had a teenage daughter at school in another country. We met during the height of the pandemic, so we couldn’t get together in person, but we spoke every day over message and had regular video calls. He showed me pictures of an impressive hotel complex that he’d designed somewhere in northern Cyprus. We started chatting and he told me that he was from Newcastle and that he was an architect. ‘He’s quite nice,’ I thought, hitting the ‘like’ button.
That was until I saw Richard – he looked smart and professional in a suit and tie and I just had a good feeling about him. The world of dating apps was entirely new to me and as I browsed through the various profiles of men apparently looking for love, it all seemed quite shallow and unromantic. I was reluctant at first, but I thought about all of my friends who have met incredible partners this way, so I eventually decided to give it a go. She suggested setting up a Facebook dating account. I could easily go a whole day without speaking to a soul. I told a friend about how much I hated going home to an empty house, without anyone to say hello to. We had met as teenagers then got together later in life – he was my soulmate and ever since he died, I had been feeling lonely and isolated.
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