A woman from the North West region of England said she lost “hundreds of thousands of pounds” after being targeted by an online scammer who posed as actor Jason Statham.
The woman, who asked that her name not be revealed, said she was targeted at a “vulnerable time” following the death of her mother and her fiancé.
“I’m quite a strong person, but, obviously, certain things get to you, and you let your guard down,” she said.
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The BBC reports that she was contacted by someone posing as the Crank actor while she was on a Facebook page dedicated to him.
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“I thought, ‘Oh, that’s nice of him, talking to his fans,’” she said. “I might have been star-struck then, I don’t know…”
The person posing as Statham invited her to start speaking to him on WhatsApp, where they began to talk over the course of several months.
“I don’t feel like I was in the right place myself because of what I’d been through,” she said.
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The fake Statham convinced her that he was in financial trouble because of a delayed film payment. She says she made a series of payments to him but would not reveal the exact amount of money.
The BBC reports that over numerous bank transfers, the woman sent “hundreds of thousands of pounds” in total.
She said it was “a substantial amount, which would have made a difference to my life and family.”
Det. Const. Craig Moylon told the BBC that fraud is an epidemic.
“We all know it’s the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “The amount of people that report fraud are probably about five to 10 per cent of the amount of people who actually are victims.”
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