I’m back with with another scam alert. In my previous post, I talked about how a bank teller in Missouri stopped a customer from becoming victim to a scam. That one ended up having a happy ending with the customer prevented from losing possibly thousands of dollars.
What I’m about to talk about next though does not have a happy ending. A man ends up losing quite a bit of money to a type of scam that is going around and affecting a lot of people today. It is known as online dating scams and, unfortunately, scammers know how to prey on the loneliness of others to drain their bank accounts. I’ll talk about how this person ended up losing so much money, the problem of online datings scams, my experience as a bank teller who has had customers nearly fall for them, and other tips to prevent you or someone you know from falling for them.
California Man Loses A Million Dollars
I found this news story out of Roseville, California. A man who lives in the town of Roseville ended up losing over $1 million do a dating scam that evolved over a few months. Well whatever was talked about between the victim and the scammer, was enough to convince the victim that this would become a serious online relationship and at some point this man began sending the scammer some money.
How did this man end up meeting the scammer online? Appartently in early spring of 2025, this man met the scammer on a dating website and then started messaging the person using iMessage. The man had a lot of conversations with this person and after some time, the California man felt that he could trust this person online, but sadly, they never met face to face and things started to go down hill for the man and his finances.
Later on down the line, the scammer started saying that they had a family member pass away and they left quite a bit of gold. Law Enforcement said that the scammer told the Roseville man that they needed over one million dollars so that the gold could get out of a holding facility and in order to do that, they would need help with additional fees such as paying taxes in Thailand as well as America.
This is where things also start to take a turn. Someone claiming to be a lawyer ended up contacting the Roseville man and said that there would need to be an additional $700,000 sent for legal fees. Apparently he was told that while it does sound like a lot of money that needs to be sent, he would receive nearly $10 million from the gold.
Later on, the scammer contacted the man again and said that she has a daughter who needed to have a kidney transplant as soon as possible and so would need money to be sent in order to cover the costs of the surgery. Well, during the next few months, the man decided to send over a million dollars that he believed was going to cover all of those costs that were mentioned above.
Finally, around the middle of the summer, the man realized that he had been scammed and so he contacted the FBI to fill out a report about what he had been through, but apparently they never contacted him back. As of this time, the man is still out of that money and the scammer got away with everything. You can read the original news story by clicking here.
The Problem of Online Dating Scams
The above news story about this particular man who was scammed out of a lot of money, highlights a major problem with online dating scams. Some may ask, well what’s the harm of meeting someone online? Lots of people do it. It even sounds like this person may have joined a legitimate dating site online.
The problem is, you really don’t know who’s on the other side of the profile you encounter on a dating site. It sounds like this person thought he may have found the perfect match and than intiated contact with this person who, unfortunately, turned out to be a scammer.
Scammers, sadly know that there are lonely and vulnerable people online, especially the elderly since they may have already lost a loved one and yearn for some kind of connection with someone. So they go online and sometimes they find someone who they think they are able to connect with. The conversation may start out with what seems genuine and getting to know each other, but that’s how the scammers try to gain your trust. Then after some time they will start requesting money for various reasons. In this particular case, the scammer was able to convince the victim that they were going to get a lot of gold and that they needed help with money to pay fees for it as well as for other reasons later on.
My guess is that this man out of California probably had a lot of money from a retirement or savings account and I’m sure ended up using a big chunk of it for this scam. Unfortunately, when he realized it was a scam, it was too late and it doesn’t look like his contact with the FBI yielded any results either. Have I ever seen customers at the institution I work at fall for dating scams? I will talk about that next.
My Experience as A Bank Teller With Dating Scams
During my nine years working at the bank, I’ve only had a few customers that have had an encounter with an online dating scam. There is one in particular that I remember very well though. While the man from California sent money to a dating scammer, the one I’m about to talk about had something a little different happen, but still a scam nontheless.
During the second half of 2020, I had a new branch manager. The new manager, at that time, did not know a lot of the regular customers yet. One day she was back helping in the teller line as well as our personal banker. I was helping a customer in the lobby, and the personal banker was helping a person in the drive thru. As I was helping the lobby customer, I could hear the voice of a well known customer in the drive thru. I am very familiar with this person’s transactions and so I was thinking she was going to do one of her regular transactions from her checking account.
Well, I was wrong and when I heard that she was making a deposit of a rather large check, my red flag senses activated because that is very out of the norm for this person. Because of the size of the check, the personal banker went over to the manager to get approval which she did give. This definitely concerned me and so after I finished the transaction I was working on, I immediately asked to see that check. It was in the thousands of dollars and this is definitely nothing like her normal transactions. The check looked fishy to me as it said it was supposedly from some lawsuit and it was out of Michigan.
I did some research and could not find the supposed law firm it came from nor did I find anything about this lawsuit itself. The location where it supposedly came from was a different business and not a law firm. That immediately confirmed my suspicions that this check was fraudulent. Thankfully there was enough time to reverse the transaction before any damage was done and the customer would’ve been out thousands.
Now I was getting ready to call the customer to let her know about the check, but the phone rang before I could pick up and dial out, but lo and behold, it was her that was calling in! I immediately answered and she recognized me, but she had a question. She asked if the check had been deposited yet because her boyfriend (who supposedly sent her the check) needed to have some of that money sent to him. I IMMEDIATELY knew this was a scam and asked her where she met this person. She said online and I told her very quickly that the check is fraudulent and that the person she was talking to online is a scammer.
I told her for her safety to immediately cease contact with this person and told her that fortunately, we were able to fully reverse the transaction in time so that neither her nor the bank were out thousands of dollars. She was a bit surprised, but understood and thanked us for looking out for her. So how this scam happened to the customer at my bank is, she met this person on an online dating site and started chatting back and forth. After awhile he convinced her that he wanted to move to Kansas, but he had some problems in Missouri and needed help with taking care of that. He said he was going to send her a check for $5,000 that she could deposit into her account, but that he would need a certain amount back. Now I don’t know what that amount was, but I told her that if anyone sends a check like that, it is typically a fraudulent check.
Thankfully, since that time, she has not fallen prey to anymore dating scams or other scams for that matter. This is why, as a teller, it’s very important to get to know your customers as well as their money habits regarding their accounts, that way if something out of the ordinary happens, which in this case it did, a teller can try to put a stop to it before money is lost. So why do people fall for dating scams and how can that be prevented? I’ll talk about that next.
Tips to Prevent Falling for a Dating Scam
A lot of people, especially the older generations, used to put a lot of stock in the words from another person. What I mean by that is, a person’s word would be as good as a written contract. Unfortunately, in today’s world, that is simply not the case. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people get lonely, especially if they’ve lost a loved one, don’t have many friends or family lives too far away and so they go online in search of a companion or just someone to talk to.
A lot of times they’ll search online dating sites or even on social media platforms to find someone to talk to. Sadly, a lot of the people on these places put up fake profiles and if it looks interesting to someone, they’ll reach out to start a connection. Over time, the conversation may seem genuine in order to build trust, but then that’s when the scammer typically strikes out saying that they have some kind of problem that they need help with and they need money to be sent.
Now some people might be thinking that it’s best to stay out of all dating sites online. I would say that you don’t need to do that, but when meeting someone online, after the initial contact and some conversations, you should always agree to meet up somewhere and do not engage with anyone who asks for money especially if you have not met in person yet. There is another type of scam that involves something similar to this, but gets more involved into a fake investing scheme and I’ll talk more about that at a later date.
If you have loved ones who are older and are generally alone, always check on them and see if they mention that they’ve met anyone new. Don’t be afraid to ask if they met someone online and make sure that they have met someone genuine and not getting duped into sending money to someone they have never met. Getting them engaged in social activites will mitigate the risk of them falling for online dating scams. Don’t let a friend or family member be the next victim who loses $1 million to an online dating scam.