Saskatoon women losing thousands to romance scams

SASKATOON – A Saskatoon woman has been defrauded of her life savings after becoming caught up in an online dating scam.

The 47-year-old known only as Maxine says she met a man by the name of Gary King on a dating website.

He sent a photo of himself saying he was a Canadian citizen working overseas in Nigeria.

“It started communicating with emails but after a few days it progressed to us exchanging phone numbers and chatting on the phone,” said Maxine.

“I thought I was in a relationship with this person, you know I thought he was coming home to Canada,” she added.

He began asking for money, starting with small amounts that grew.

She says he always had a legitimate reason for needing the cash.

After four months Maxine had lost her life savings of more than $8,000. It was then she realized she was being scammed.

Not only did she lose the money, her credit rating was also affected.

“I’m feeling anger more than sadness, finances are a big strain for me now,” she said.

Maxine isn’t alone. Saskatoon widow Gilda Hamilton appeared on the Dr Phil show last week after losing close to $200,000 in a similar romance scam.

Saskatoon Police Economic Crimes Staff Sergeant Keith Briant says it’s a scam that has victimized several woman in Saskatoon.

“These frauds in particular are generally the biggest money fraud, money leaving Saskatoon is huge at this point because of matters of the heart,” he said.

“In the last six months I think I’ve seen maybe four or five of them,” he added.

Briant says it’s almost impossible to track down the culprits who operate overseas and people simply need to be more aware.

“There are people out there that are willing to take advantage of other people’s loneliness, their situations to take as much money as quickly as they can,” he said.

Maxine knows she won’t get her money back but wants to warn others.

“I’m angry and I wouldn’t want this to happen to anybody else,” she said.

Maxine says she’s not stupid, she’s seen people scammed before but like so many others she was blinded by the potential for love.