‘I was totally sucked in’: Inside an international Facebook love scam
In this ‘Crimes, Cons and Capers’ segment, see how a social media fake identity caused more than heartbreak for one widow
Online dating can be scary enough. But having to navigate *** world where there are so many scammers out there makes it even more difficult. Nancy. Douglas has been through *** lot. Douglas was once married to *** vice president at Alcoa. She was happy and financially secure but he died in *** plane crash. Her second marriage didn’t work out either for nancy, love didn’t seem to be in the cards. So most recently Douglas was single. That is until *** man named keith Bartell messaged her on facebook out of the blue. He was younger and handsome. He told her she was beautiful, explained that he worked for *** gold mining company. If you were on *** dating site and you say that your recently widowed or recently divorced, that’s going to send *** message to the scammer that you are in an emotionally vulnerable position. What starts on facebook quickly progresses to text messages and from their phone calls, calls that knock nancy off her feet, he’s talking in this dutch, sexy accent that any woman would probably go out of her mind, keith calls nancy darling and sends bouquet after bouquet of flowers. But nancy’s kids are skeptical so they call the mining company to confirm his employment. The voice on the other line said yes keith Bartell works here. It’s all checking out and Nancy’s in love. She talks with Keith three times *** day and even text in the middle of the night. This goes on for four months Keith promised to move to Hampton and buy her *** mansion in *** red range rover. He said he’d already picked out *** diamond ring and they’d get married. We we want to be wealthy, we want the american dream. We all long for love. When we have experienced *** loss, it can be *** brutal loss and it’s something that we will nurse and hold on to me wanting so much to have *** loving partner like I had with my first husband. It was fabulous me wanting that. To the point where I didn’t see the clear red flags. One day keith asks his darling for *** loan. After four months of talking every day, nancy sent him money through Western Union keith tells nancy he needs to buy new mining equipment. He says he has the money but it’s tied up in assets and investments. There’s *** heavy reliance on wire transfers for these internet scams is number one. When you go to *** Western Union and you take out significant amount of money and you’re wiring it, you’re owning it. So if I say I’m sending to john doe in Thailand you are now accepting financial responsibility for it. So that’s number one. And also it’s quick and easy to do it, it went on for *** year nancy sending nearly $10,000 to him through Western Union to south Africa nancy is blissfully in love, unaware that all that money she’s been sending her beloved will never be repaid it all came crashing down one day at the PNC bank on route eight when keith said he put $28,000 in her account. Nancy showed up after keith asked her to make *** withdrawal. *** banker told her it was all an elaborate fraud nancy was crushed but has decided to share her story to warn other women about romance scams, convenient to meet people from all over online, but it’s also been extremely convenient for scammers. People from overseas can easily get access to these online dating profiles facebook and can target vulnerable victims that women Aged 50 from 75 are the prime targets of these scams. They will come on and say you are the most beautiful woman or man I have ever seen in my life, I can’t believe you’ve just had so much happen to you during this time, how can I help you? It’s so easy to fall for. Like usually I’m not this naive but I was totally sucked in by this people think that the more computer literate we get and the more we are used to social media as *** form of communication, it will cut down on internet scams, I think it’s only going to progress them because remember the internet changes so quickly, so do scam artists now for the million dollar question if the person nancy fell in love with wasn’t keith martell, who was it? We decided to do some digging, Pittsburgh’s action news for producer Mary Davies took *** photo from the scammers facebook page and ran *** reverse image search on google, which brought up this newspaper article with *** matching photo listing him as *** politician. She then ran *** reverse image search on this photo from the scammers page of *** mountain, which as it turns out is in New Zealand. Next she typed new Zealand politician into google and there you have it. The photos on the profile of the so called keith Bartell are all of this man named Nathan guy, *** minister of parliament in New Zealand. Clearly someone had stolen his photos to run the scheme, they have to cry create this character and so often they’ll pick an image and they want an image that looks trustworthy where there’s enough public images that they can find in various settings that shows reliability but that people wouldn’t be very familiar with. So this means somewhere in South Africa, someone is using the name of *** real mining corporation employee in the photos of this real new Zealand politician to fake love with people all over the world. Any justice for nancy, it’s very common nowadays for internet scammers to not really get apprehended or prosecuted due to the nature of the crime, there are real victims and sometimes the victims suffer more psychologically and emotionally with PTSD because sometimes the assailant is unknown to them and that means they’re always looking over their shoulder or they’re double checking their bank accounts online, dating, makes *** lot of things convenient, but it also makes things very complicated.
‘I was totally sucked in’: Inside an international Facebook love scam
In this ‘Crimes, Cons and Capers’ segment, see how a social media fake identity caused more than heartbreak for one widow
Updated: 12:54 PM CST Feb 10, 2023
Stream full episodes of “Crimes, Cons and Capers” now by downloading the Very Local app for free.Nancy Douglas has been through a lot. Her first husband died in a plane crash. For Nancy, love didn’t seem to be in the cards.Enter Keith Bartel.Keith connected with Nancy on Facebook. He seemed like a perfect catch: Young, handsome, wealthy. Keith showered Nancy with compliments and gifts.”He’s talking in this Dutch sexy accent that any woman would probably go out of her mind,” she said.One problem: Keith isn’t who he says he is. So, who is this international man of mystery? And what does he want from Nancy? Find out how “Keith” costs Nancy thousands in the video at the top of this page. Want more? See how other moments of true love turned into true crime tales on this episode of “Crimes, Cons and Capers” on Very Local.What is Very Local?Very Local is a streaming app where you can watch local news, original series and more. Keep connected to your hometown with the news team you trust and discover original series and specials that explore your community and beyond.Follow Very Local on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for more.
Stream full episodes of “Crimes, Cons and Capers” now by downloading the Very Local app for free.
Nancy Douglas has been through a lot. Her first husband died in a plane crash. For Nancy, love didn’t seem to be in the cards.
Enter Keith Bartel.
Keith connected with Nancy on Facebook. He seemed like a perfect catch: Young, handsome, wealthy. Keith showered Nancy with compliments and gifts.
“He’s talking in this Dutch sexy accent that any woman would probably go out of her mind,” she said.
One problem: Keith isn’t who he says he is.
So, who is this international man of mystery? And what does he want from Nancy?
Find out how “Keith” costs Nancy thousands in the video at the top of this page.
Want more? See how other moments of true love turned into true crime tales on this episode of “Crimes, Cons and Capers” on Very Local.
What is Very Local?
Very Local is a streaming app where you can watch local news, original series and more. Keep connected to your hometown with the news team you trust and discover original series and specials that explore your community and beyond.
Follow Very Local on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for more.
