An Arizona woman is facing multiple fraud charges for allegedly scamming a widow she met on the popular Words With Friends gaming app out of thousands of dollars by posing as a man named Garth Davis and asking for cash.
Carla Ann Whaley, 70, was arrested at her home in Gilbert, Arizona on Monday for what police call a ‘romance scam’ that cost an unnamed Tennessee woman nearly $34,000.
According to court documents, the victim told Gilbert Police in November that she had been feeling vulnerable and lonely since her husband died earlier in the year and found comfort speaking to a man she met on the gaming app who said his name was ‘Garth Davis.’
The widow said ‘Garth’ was easy to talk to and they became romantically involved in March. They moved their chats to Google Hangouts around the same time and that’s when ‘Garth’ said he was having trouble accessing his bank accounts and began asking for cash and gift cards.
A few months later, ‘Garth’ began requesting the money be sent to his ‘friend’ Carla Whaley, and the victim grew suspicious and contacted police. By then, she had already given ‘Garth’ thousands of dollars.
Carla Ann Whaley, 70, was arrested at her home in Gilbert, Arizona on Monday for a ‘romance scam’ that cost an ‘lonely’ unnamed Tennessee widow nearly $34,000
According to court documents, the scam began when ‘Garth’ told the victim that he was a project manager on an oil rig off the coast of Ireland and started having trouble accessing money in his bank account. He asked for money to be sent through cash cards and gift cards, which she did.
But when the woman broke her foot, making it difficult for her go out and purchase the cards, ‘Garth’ told her to start sending money to Carla Whaley, his ‘friend’ who lived in Gilbert.
The woman sent Whaley $20,000 in cash and $3,000 through CashApp until July, court documents confirm. She then grew suspicious and called the police, who went to Whaley’s home to speak with her.
Gilbert Police went to Whaley’s home to speak to her, court documents state, and Whaley told police that the name ‘Garth Davis’ was familiar to her, but it was ‘not on her list.’
Whaley also told police she was helping a friend move money but did not tell officers who the friend was, explaining that she did not wish to expose their identity and said she would feel more comfortable talking about it away from her husband.
In late December, Whaley was brought into the Gilbert police station for further questioning, where she told police she ‘wasn’t entirely truthful’ the first time she spoke with police.
Whaley admitted receiving $20,000 in cash from the woman, according to court documents.
Following her statements, police searched Whaley’s CashApp and saw that the money she had within the app was being exchanged for cryptocurrency and bitcoin and then exchanged for cash.
Whaley had transferred just over $10,000 from the CashApp to her credit union account from July to August.
Whaley was arrested at her Arizona home and booked into jail on Monday. She faces one count of fraudulent schemes and one count of financing a criminal syndicate.
Detective Gary Kidder, with the Gilbert Police told AZFamily that says this sort of scam is common.
‘Most commonly, the subject that the person’s communicating with will say they are out of the country, maybe they’re in the military, deployed; they can be in a part of the country that doesn’t make it easy for the people they’re communicating with to meet with,’ Kidder said. ‘They create that distance between them and the person they’re communicating with.’
Kidder added that once the subject builds trust, then they make their move to try to get money.
Whaley was arrested at her Arizona home and booked into jail on Monday. She faces one count of fraudulent schemes and one count of financing a criminal syndicate
Detective Gary Kidder with the Gilbert Police told AZFamily that says the ‘Romance scam’ is common – and can be used on any platform, including Words With Friends (pictured)
‘They basically come up with some sort of medical problem or some sort of business crisis to where it’s now an urgent issue – they don’t have access to their personal bank accounts — now they ask the subject they’re communicating with. They’ll say, hey, I really need some money and quickly,’ Kidder said.
‘As compelled, you feel to help somebody out. If you send them money and you don’t know who these people are, and you’ve never met these people personally, they’re going to accept that money, and they’re going to turn around and require more money.’
Kidder said that another common red flag you or someone you know is being scammed is if they are asking you not to send the money directly to them.
He added that if you notice a relative is speaking with someone online, open up the conversation about who that person is and how they met.
According to the Maricopa County attorney’s Office, in 2019, more than 25,000 people reported losing $201 million to romance scams with the average victim losing $2,600 and those over the age of 70 losing an average of $10,000 or more.
Sarma Melngailis, the former chef at the center of Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives, a true crime docuseries on Netflix, says her downfall can be traced back to her marriage to Anthony Strangis, whom she came to know through Words with Friends and Twitter.
The series documents the downfall of the glamorous restaurateur who was a darling of New York society and dubbed the ‘Queen of vegan cuisine’ and details how she ended up in prison after disappearing with $2 million.
Melngailis claims Strangis conned and controlled her into funneling her restaurant’s funds to him by promising to expand her food empire and – incredibly – to make her beloved dog immortal.
Melngailis said she was lonely when she connected with Strangis on Twitter in 2011 and naively trusted him because of his interactions with Baldwin, wrongly assuming they were friends.
They were caught by authorities on May 12, 2016, after Strangis used his real name to order a non-vegan cheese pizza and buffalo wings from Domino’s to their hotel room in Sevierville, Tennessee.
In May 2017, Melngailis pleaded guilty to stealing more than $200,000 from an investor and scheming to defraud, as well as criminal tax fraud charges.
She was sentenced to four months in New York’s notorious Rikers prison.
Strangis pleaded guilty to four counts of grand larceny in the fourth degree. He was sentenced to one year in jail and five years probation and had to repay $840,000 to investors He walked free having already spent a year behind bars at Rikers.
Melngailis claimed her ex-husband, Anthony Strangis (right), manipulated her into swindling nearly $2 million from investors and stiffing unpaid employees before going on the run
Melngaili’s rise and fall was chronicled in the recent Netflix docuseries ‘Bad Vegan: Fame, Fraud, Fugitives’
