Man Loses N14m In Online Dating, Cryptocurrency Scam

A man has lost £20,000 in a cryptocurrency scam to someone he met on a dating app.

In May, a British man James Evans met a friendly man called David on dating app Grindr.

The two became close and their conversation moved to Whatsapp where they discussed cryptocurrency trading.

David introduced Evans to crypto, promising to teach him how to earn money from the market.

Firstly, Evans was persuaded to set up a crypto account on Binance and fund it with £500.

After that the fraudster tricked him into transferring the money to another platform, claiming that he was investing.

Evans was made to believe that he was in control of his account on this platform and the screen appeared to show him making money.

Evans then tried to withdraw the money along with his profit but he was told that his account had been blocked.

He reported this to David who asked him to call customer care, which he did.

The customer care representative then demanded that he paid 50% of his deposit to unlock his account, which he reluctantly did.

After this, he noticed that he still didn’t have access to the account.

He contacted them again and they requested more money and at that point, he realized that it was a scam.

Mr Evans reported the scam to his bank but it was too late to be rectified.

Read also: South African Brothers Vanish With $3.6 Billion in World’s Largest Cryptocurrency Scam

Dating scams have been on the rise during the pandemic, with Which? UK reporting a 40% rise.

Most of them involve people being tricked to transfer money into another person’s account.