Fraud schemes may pose as Web romance
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Ah, a Valentine's Day celebration of an online relationship -- a romantic card, a dozen roses and three little words: "I need money."
What?
"Some consumers seeking a heart full of love through an online relationship may instead find themselves with a bank account empty of funds," said Kim Garner, senior vice president of Global Security and Investigations for MoneyGram.
She said romance scams, in which crooks display romantic interest to help themselves to their victims' pocketbooks and wallets, rank near the top of financial frauds committed every year.
Ms. Garner said approximately 60 percent of the victims are women between the ages of 45 and 65. Many of them are widows. Male victims usually range in age from 50 to 65.
She said crooks use obituaries and widow/widower message boards to locate their victims. They also use online dating websites that have been growing in popularity.
"They truly have no heart, no conscience," she said. "Some victims have lost more than $9,000."
Because crooks usually ask their victims to wire money to them, MoneyGram, one of the world's leading money transfer companies, has trained its employees to be on the lookout for potential victims.
She said MoneyGram's fraud detection system last year stopped 4,879 transactions valued at $13.75 million -- 23 percent of the money the company was able to save consumers by stopping transactions in 2011. Since May 2010, MoneyGram has prevented $80 million in fraudulent activity and returned that money to its customers.
Ms. Garner, a former special agent for the U.S. Secret Service, said many of the romance scammers are based in Nigeria.
She said a representative of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission told a recent meeting of the Federal Trade Commission that his country has been cracking down on scammers.
First Published February 2, 2012 12:00 am
