A 37-year-old single mother of three became a victim of a romance scam after believing the man she met on a dating site. She lost $82,000 in the scam and was “consumed for months.”
A mother with her childrenPhoto by Alexander Dummer on Unsplash
It is not easy for a single mother of three to have free time to socialize and meet people outside of her busy home life. Some turn to dating websites or dating apps to be able to meet a person in lieu of attending social events.
For one mother of three in Illinois, she thought she met a decent guy, but the man did not have good intentions for her.
Chicago Tribune reported that 37-year-old Christine Settingsgaard — a “successful executive” (according to DailyMail) — was on the dating website Hinge, to see if there were any men she would be interested in.
She came across a profile for Mark, a man in his 30s, an architectural engineer from Greece.
They matched, so they began chatting by text, Facebook messages, and phone calls, but never video chat.
He claimed that his wife had died and he had a 5-year-old daughter named Kelsey that lived with his sister in Utah.
This was all a lie, of course. because Mark was a catfish, and he was setting Christine up for a scam that relied on his story.
Mark always had a reason why he couldn’t meet up with Christine. These were all convenient excuses for him to stay mysterious.
So one day, Mark had to work at a remote job site, and he had a big favor to ask of Christine.
It’s first important to know that this wasn’t the first favor Mark asked her to do. DailyMail reported that on a prior occasion, Mark asked Christine for $500 on PayPal, and he repaid her $500 on PayPal to gain her trust. (Source: DailyMail)
Mark now told her that he received $85,000 as payment for a job he completed in Houston, Texas. He wanted to get this money to his sister that was taking care of his daughter. Since he was on this job, he could not get to his bank, and he mentioned that the IRS may have been looking at his bank accounts from a previous transaction. (Source: Chicago Tribune)
So he needed a big favor from Christine.
He proposed this idea: He has this check he can’t deposit, so he would mail this check of $85,000 to Christine, and she would deposit the money into her bank account, keep $3,000 for her trouble, and wire $82,000 to his sister in Utah.
Christine felt uneasy about this arrangement.
“I’m tired and don’t understand and feel like I’m about to get arrested for money laundering or something.” -Christine Settingsgaard, scam victim texting catfish “Mark” (Source: Chicago Tribune)
He replied to her text:
“No babe lol. No money laundering, you won’t be arrested, I promise.” -Mark, the Catfish (Source: Chicago Tribune)
Following the favor, Mark told her he would give her a big surprise and that she would love it.
Mark convinced her everything would be fine, so he mailed her the check. Christine said it looked official with the standard check security, but she didn’t notice that it was issued by a church in Mesa, Arizona. (Source: Chicago Tribune)
Christine went to an ATM and deposited the check into her account, and saw that her balance the next day included the check deposit. She didn’t know that most banks keep checks on hold for a set amount of days* until the funds actually clear into the account.
*The Expedited Funds Availability Act sets the limit for banks to hold nonlocal checks for five days.
If the account is fake, or the funds are not there, the amount will be removed from the bank account it was deposited into, even if it makes the bank account go negative, or overdrawn.
Christine went ahead and sent $82,000 by ACH wire to “Mark’s sister,” and she was about to lose her life savings to a scam.
Meanwhile, the check from Central Christian Church in Mesa, Arizona was trying to clear. The church was called and Cory Calkins, a security consultant confirmed that the church doesn’t write checks for this amount.
He said:
“It was obviously a forgery and a fraud. We don’t write $85,000 checks.” -Cory Calkins, security consultant for Central Christian Church (Source: Chicago Tribune)
After the bank rejected the check, Christine’s bank account went negative.
It now had a balance of -$84,334.00.
Christine contacted Mark and he acted ignorant of the situation until his Facebook account sent back to her a “bizarre message” that said the following:
“This is Fiorani, E6 representative of the state Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the message said. “We hate to break this to you, Mrs. Settingsgaard, but none of the info of this person is real … The perpetrator manages in stealing People’s info, opening bank accounts in their names and using their identity for laundering acts.”
Christine believes this message also came from the same person that catfished her and scammed her.
Her life is ruined.
“I have no money. If it weren’t for my friends and my neighbors, I couldn’t pay my mortgage. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. And it’s the saddest for my kids because they just see me crying all the time.” -Christine Settingsgaard, scam victim texting catfish “Mark” (Source: Chicago Tribune)
Christine now believes the person that catfished her is based out of Nigeria.
This is because she gave him access to her cellphone account after he claimed to want to pay her monthly cellphone bill.
What he actually did was make expensive phone calls out of Nigeria, and purchased five iPhones using her account.
Chicago Tribune reported that the “Barrington police would not release their report on Settingsgaard’s case, saying it was still under investigation, but Healey said local investigators face difficulties following money trails that can cross state lines and international boundaries.”
Christine Settingsgaard was persistently fighting with her bank until they finally offered the following to her:
“The bank sent her an email offering to forgive the $82,000, return her money and remove any negative credit reporting.” (Source: Chicago Tribune)
The outcome of this scam story is not typical.
Most people that are scammed do not typically have their debt forgiven and a happy ending like in this story, despite all of the anguish this woman experienced.
Christine Settingsgaard said this situation “consumed her for months” and left her “publicly embarrassed.” (Source: DailyMail)
Was this her own fault for trusting Mark?
Never send money to strangers. If they have a check, let them take it to their bank. Keep your money far away from scammers.
Help inform friends and family about this scam by sharing this information. It’s important to stay up-to-date on the latest scams, so we can prevent them from happening to others.
Keilman, John. “The case of the vanishing deposit: Barrington woman defrauded in catfishing check scam that reveals vulnerability of bank accounts.” Chicago Tribune. 5 October 2022.
Michalitsianos, Joseph. “Single mom, 33, is scammed out of $85,000 by Nigerian fraudster posing as hunky Greek widower on Hinge who ‘wrote’ her love poem she later discovered was stolen from internet.” DailyMail.co.uk. 6 October 2022.
“Tennessee Woman Loses $390,000 in Cryptocurrency Romance Scam After Getting Her Mother’s Inheritance.” Newsbreak. 17 October 2022.
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