SCOTTSDALE, AZ (AZFamily) — A Scottsdale man says he’s out thousands of dollars because of a scam that started on a dating app.
He said a scammer posed as a detective and convinced him he was being accused of soliciting a minor, and that led to him forking over a lot of cash. Traumatized by this, he wanted to remain anonymous but felt he needed to share his story as a warning to others, hoping it would prevent someone else from falling for the same scam.
“They had me emotionally blackmailed. They had me financially extorted,” the victim said. “My whole life was flashing before my eyes,”
Last week, he met someone he thought was a woman named Kayla on a Christian dating app. She messaged him, claiming to be a 22-year-old who recently moved to Phoenix.
“She said, ‘Hey, I’m not on this app very often. Would you mind if we text?’ And I said yeah, no worries. You know, here’s my phone number. And I didn’t think anything of it at all because that happens all the time,” he said.
Over text, he says there were some red flags, like when she asked him for a picture of himself. He says he didn’t reply, and hours later, she sends him a provocative photo out of nowhere.
“My response back to her was you don’t know me. You should be really careful on who you’re sending things like that to, and she responded back with I’m just a young girl looking to express myself lol,” he said.
The next day, he got a phone call from what seemed to be a Tempe Police Department detective.
“He said I have a father down here at the station who is alleging that you have a relationship with his 15-year-old daughter and as you can imagine, my heart sank,” he said. “He said, ‘Son I have enough to charge you with solicitation of a minor. I have enough to charge you with child pornography.’”
The pretend detective told him the teen girl’s father wanted to talk to him. He spoke with the fake dad, who said his wife walked in on his daughter making an illicit video, and that led to a physical fight.
“The laptop was destroyed. There was a glass table that was shattered. Our patio door was shattered, he said,” recalled the victim.
The fictitious father asked him to send thousands of dollars to fix the damage to avoid an insurance claim, police report, and criminal charges. He feared the accusations alone could ruin his life.
“I knew that he was at the police station. He was with detectives. I was on a recorded line, and the detective was right next to him. That was all real to me. So I thought, let’s just get this over with. So I sent him the money,” he said.
Police have confirmed this was a scam and told him the criminals are likely outside the country.
“The phone number and caller ID were spoofed and the voices were masked using AI technology,” he said. “If this can happen to me, this can happen to anybody.”
The victim said he’s working with his bank to get his money back, but he’s still receiving threatening texts demanding more money.
Scottsdale police say this scam isn’t particularly common. It combines a dating extortion scam and a warrant scam when crooks call pretending to be the police.
Detectives say it’s best to hang up and block the number if you get a similar call.
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