An elderly Nanaimo woman learned a hard lesson when she was looking for love and fell prey to a notorious dating site scam that bilked her of almost $100,000.
Following the death of her husband, the woman who was lonely and looking for friendship, signed up on the dating site Match.com in late 2016. Shortly after joining the site, she was exchanging emails, texts and phone calls with a man who went by the name Jonathan Lucron. Lucron claimed to be a civil engineer working in China.
After several months, he started asking for money to support his various work projects and the woman, who believed they were in a relationship, willingly agreed to wire him money which he promised to pay her back.
Although she still had never met Lucron in person, she was soon sending him money to several accounts around the world.
Several weeks ago, Lucron told her he was travelling to a nearby city and planned to ask her to marry him. The woman, according to police, was thrilled and travelled to the city to wait for his arrival. After two days and checking with every possible airline, she realized he was not going to show.
It was at that time the woman realized she had been scammed and reported it to Nanaimo RCMP.
Investigators have not been able to find any record of a Jonathon Lucron and the area code of the number he provided was traced to Southern Ontario. But police said there is no record of this phone number or Jonathan Lucron in any police databases.
Nanaimo RCMP Cst. Gary O’Brien said many women around the world have fallen prey to this civil engineer dating scam or dating scams and if someone you’ve met online starts asking for money, it’s time you forget you ever met them.
To report a scam or to learn more about dating site scams, click here.
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