A NSW lady has advised how she was tricked into believing she was in a web based relationship with Australian actor Alex O’Loughlin as a part of a catfishing rip-off.
All up, Sonia* mentioned she misplaced $37,000 to the scammers – in addition to her pleasure and dignity.
“I look back at it now and think about how stupid I was,” the 45-year-old from regional NSW advised 9news.com.au.
9news.com.au doesn’t counsel in any approach O’Loughlin has any connection to scammers.
The traumatic expertise started again in November 2020 when Sonia* was first approached on Twitter by an account with the identical identify because the 46-year-old Hawaii 5-O star.
On her personal Twitter account, Sonia talked about how a lot she beloved Hawaii 5-O and in addition adopted some O’Loughlin fan accounts.
“It was during the pandemic and I just felt alone and I wanted to talk to other people who had the same interests as me,” Sonia mentioned.
When the primary Twitter messages got here via from the account masquerading as O’Loughlin they have been innocuous sufficient, Sonia mentioned.
“The messages were all about the show and what I liked about it, what I thought of the last two seasons and that kind of stuff,” she mentioned.
Sonia mentioned she quickly turned satisfied that she was talking with the true O’Loughlin – who is predicated within the US – as a result of the messages indicated a deep information about Hawaii 5-O and the actor’s life.
“I asked him what his real name was, which is information that you really need to dig for, and he knew it straight away,” Sonia mentioned.
The messages quickly grew private, with the scammer asking Sonia about her life.
At his request, they moved their dialog to WhatsApp, the place the dialog turned much more flirtatious.
“It was a romance scam and I was being groomed,” Sonia mentioned.
“He would tell me that he was divorcing his wife and looking for the right person for him.
“He advised me he was coming again to Australia. He mentioned, ‘I am gonna go there and see my household and we may meet up.’ However, in fact, he by no means put a date to it.”
Eventually, the scammer posing as O’Loughlin would tell Sonia he was in love with her and wanted her to marry him.
It was after about a month of constant messaging that the scammer made his first mention of money, Sonia said.
The scammer told Sonia he had bought her a Christmas present from a New York jewellery store, which was worth more than $US250,000 ($360,000).
“He confirmed me the pictures of the jewelry. In fact, you’re that overwhelmed with it on the time that you do not query it…it was very flattering,” Sonia mentioned.
“The catch was that I needed to pay a ‘customs price’ for it to come back into Australia.”
Sonia said she forked out $8500 for the customs fee to a “courier” before she realised it was a scam.
But the scammer wasn’t done with Sonia yet.
Sonia said the person posing as O’Loughlin managed to convince her he was a victim of the mailing scam too.
“He performed out that he was additionally scammed and that he felt terrible about me being scammed,” she said.
“He mentioned he felt so terrible and he wished me to have a beautiful Christmas – so he provided to switch the identical amount of cash because the jewelry was price right into a checking account.”
In order to do this, the scammer asked Sonia to set up a bank account, directing her to the website of a fake financial institution called Trust Universal Bank.
Sonia said when she asked the scammer why he couldn’t just transfer the money into her current bank account, he had a ready excuse.
“He mentioned he did not need his spouse to search out out about it as they’d a joint account,” Sonia said.
Sonia filled out forms on the fraudulent website, supplying her driver’s licence and passport details, and was given a “checking account”, which appeared to show a balance of $500,000 had been deposited.
However, when Sonia tried to withdraw the money, a notification popped up asking for a transfer code.
Sonia was told she needed to pay around $8000, and then another $20,500, in order to get the code.
Sonia said she paid the first two amounts, but then baulked when another $12,000 was demanded.
An online search by Sonia revealed that the website was using the logo from a legitimate US bank called Trust Bank.
Sonia called the Trust Bank, where a manager confirmed Trust Universal Bank did not exist.
“That is after I realised I had been scammed,” Sonia said.
“It was like being hit with a baseball bat and having every part ripped out.”
Sonia said her bank initially refused to reimburse her for any of her losses.
But, after she lodged a dispute with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, ANZ refunded $5000 of the roughly $8500 she paid in “customs” duty at the beginning of the scam.
9news.com.au has reached out to O’Louglin’s Australian representative, who said the actor’s agent and lawyer in the US were aware of the matter.
O’Loughlin’s US agent is yet to respond.
Sonia said she had since connected with other victims on Facebook who had also been duped into thinking they were speaking with the real O’Loughlin.
“I do know a few of his followers have misplaced as much as $350,000 because of these scams working on-line,” she said.
Sonia said she hoped O’Loughlin would consider releasing a statement warning his fans about the scammers.
Calls for banks to do more
Last year, Australians reported $40.7 million in romance scam losses to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch.
It’s a small fraction of the $570 million in total losses reported to Scamwatch during the same period.
While enormous, the true figure is likely to be far greater again, with only a small percentage of scam victims coming forward.
The ACCC has long been campaigning for banks to adopt technology already used in some parts of Europe which helps customers check the name of the account they are transferring money to in order to reduce the volume of bank transfer scams.
While online banking transactions require customers to enter a recipient’s name, BSB and account number, most banks check only the BSB and account number.
Last week, the Commonwealth Bank announced it would follow the Netherlands’ lead and begin using a technology called NameCheck.
CBA’s retail banking group executive, Angus Sullivan, said the technology indicates whether account details entered by customers to make a first-time payment match those in the bank’s database.
“After they switch cash on-line, many individuals assume the supposed recipient’s account identify is checked in addition to the BSB and account quantity, however normally this isn’t doable,” he said. “We now have the information and expertise to enhance this.”
A spokesperson for ANZ declined to answer questions asked by 9news.com.au about whether it also planned to introduce the same technology.
“Our groups and methods monitor suspicious exercise 24/7, analysing 1000’s of information factors and developments day by day,” an ANZ spokesperson said in a statement.
“As subtle scammers change the way in which they aim their victims, we too change how we work to guard our prospects, with new methods and applied sciences deployed to establish and disrupt these actions.”
*Identify has been modified for privateness causes.
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