by A mum who was widowed after 51 years of marriage has told how she was cruelly scammed out of £250,000 after she turned to online dating as a way to lift herself out of loneliness. The Mirror reports that Elizabeth Ferguson, a retired senior university manager and businesswoman, was lured into handing over her savings by a man who was a telecommunications expert for love.
Elizabeth, 79, a mother of two and four grandchildren, said: “I still can’t believe the nightmare I had.”
In April 2022, three years after the death of her husband George and desperate to end her loneliness, she joined dating site Match. Almost immediately, she saw Courtney Roy.
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She says: “His profile said he was 68 and his interests included nature, travel and volunteering. His pictures showed a good-looking man, and he said he lived in Dublin. The He seemed like someone I could have a conversation with.”
As they chatted on WhatsApp, he told Elizabeth who herself lives near Dublin that he had divorced his cheating wife, and claimed to have been raised by his grandparents in Cyprus after losing his parents in an accident car. She says: “This was part of the scam. Not just to get my sympathy, but to explain errors in his written English.”
Elizabeth shared details about her own life, and says: “I felt the connection grow. Courtney responded to my photos saying I was beautiful. She was definitely interested.” After he proposed to travel to meet her, they had their first video call. She says: “It was almost impossible to see or hear but it didn’t seem strange. Connections can 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 dimension.” Then he made a strange suggestion. She says: “He told me to buy a black T-shirt and some man’s scent, which cost me £160. I was going to spray it on the shirt and wear it in bed, listening to a song he sent, to feel connected to him. on him.”
“He posted pictures of him on the oil rig in protective gear and arriving by helicopter. They reinforced everything. I had no reason to doubt the busy, successful man I was starting to fall for he said that he was. “‘But now the scammer was ready to get Elizabeth’s money. He didn’t want money from me, but to log into his bank account and make the transfer because his signal was terrible. It was a sign that he trusted me.”
When she saw a balance of $1.45 million in the account, she transferred the $70,000 to him. She says: “He was so grateful. So when he messaged that he needed another $7,000 to cover moving 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 was locked out of his account asking Elizabeth to use her own money instead.
She says: “I had a flash of suspicion. Then I remembered what was in his account, and $7,000 didn’t seem like a huge amount. Then he put a picture of himself with a card that said, ‘Please help me, I promise you . will never regret it’.” Elizabeth sent the funds through a crypto currency site. She says: “He was telling me how much he cared for me, what an incredible woman I was, and I believed him. That’s why what happened next was so scary.”
Courtney posted a message saying an explosion on the rig put him in danger and a colleague was sending a video of the alleged accident. She says: “I was so worried, so when he asked me to send more money, I was in such a panic that I did. I used a crypto app that he told me to download. ” Just as Elizabeth began to have her doubts, a courier arrived with what appeared to be a banker’s draft for €950,000, in Courtney’s name.
She says: “He was hitting me with a combination of ‘I love you, I’m in danger, and here’s proof of all the money I’ve got’. It was a powerful combination and it worked.” As his request for money increased, Elizabeth turned to loans to family and friends, saying it was work on her house. She admits: “I felt terrible lie.” And the stress took its toll. She says: “I stopped sleeping and eating, I lost a stone. I was caught.”
“I have already sent him so much. If I refused your request, he might not come and activate the banker’s draft then I would lose it all.” If she expressed doubt, Courtney became verbally aggressive. She says: “He accused me of being bipolar. He was manipulative.” Finally, after she sent him £245,027 in crypto payments, he told her he was flying home on December 30, 2022, from Japan. She recalls: “I was relieved to receive a copy of his e-ticket.”
But on the day he was due to fly, he sent him a message saying drugs had been put 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 that I was tricked into giving him almost a quarter of a million pounds. It is impossible to describe the shock of guilt that I. “I lost my children’s inheritance.
Her family was shocked, she hurt that she cried but mostly mad for them. They noticed that some of the pictures had been manipulated. We discovered they belonged to Canadian actor Ian Simpson, who starred in the US tour of Mamma Mia! Elizabeth says: “The scammer stole whatever pictures they wanted to convince me.” Relatives also discovered that the oil rig explosion is a common scam story.
When the police and Action Fraud were unable to help, Elizabeth faced financial ruin until a relative put her in touch with CEL Solicitors. She says: “I had no idea that institutions like banks have an obligation to protect customers, that hopefully an attorney could get my money back.” She also contacted Match, which removed the scammer’s profile only for the pictures to reappear under a different name. She says: “How can we know who is real?” In January this year, Elizabeth’s solicitors informed her that they had recovered £252,000. But the emotional impact still runs 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 right now. Romantic fraud destroys lives.” Match told us: “We continually refine our technologies to identify and prevent fraudulent activity.” The agent of Ian Simpson, whose photos were used in the scam, says she receives messages every month about his photos being misused without his knowledge or permission. She adds: “The irony is that Ian is part of the LGBTQ+ community. He and his partner have been together for many years.”
