5. Indiana Woman Losing over $150,000.
In 2014 an Indiana woman began an online relationship with a man she thought was a local engineer named John Hagan. A month after meeting, the con artist complained of financial difficulties and began asking for money to pay his employees and to replace stolen tools. All in all, the woman wired around $150,000 to Hagan, who was actually a Nigerian named Kazeem Owonla. Owonla was eventually caught and is currently serving 36 months in prison.
4. Tinder Bots.
The buzz surrounding the dating app, Tinder, has certainly died down since its peak in 2014, but that hasn’t stopped Tinder spam bots from continuing to scam people on the app. Scammers have used Tinder to try to get people to pay for services they don’t want like games or apps and most notably chatting on a webcam or other adult sites.
3. Chinese Daters Beware.
One of China’s most used dating scams is simply called “Date for Profit.” Upscale restaurants will hire attractive women to make online dating profiles, and get men to take them on dates to said restaurant. They will rack up an extremely high tab during the date, ordering expensive menu items. The men who footed the bill will never hear from these women again, while the owner of the restaurant and their “employee” will split the money from the bill.
2. Maurice Asola Fadola.
One of the most prolific online dating scam artists is Maurice Asola Fadola. The Ghanaian posed as a United States Army general that had fought in Iraq. Fadola was in relationships with several British women that he met on online dating sites, he urged them to send money for various legal issues, emergency medical procedures and to buy his way out of the military. Fadola conned at least 19 women out of about 800,000 pounds, using the money to maintain his lavish mansion.
1. Jette Jacobs.
The most notorious and tragic online dating scam is the story of Jette Jacobs. Jacobs, an Australian widow had been in an online relationship with a Nigerian man she knew as Jesse, sending several thousand dollars to him over a four period. However, in 2013 while vacationing with Jesse in Johannesburg, South Africa, Jacobs was found dead in her villa with her money, credit cards and jewelry missing. Jesse was arrested in 2014 and charged with Jacob’s murder.