A woman who thought she met the love of her life online bought a wedding dress and went to the airport to meet her fiance. She waited all night, but he never came.
That man is now in prison.
Olayinka Ilumsa Sunmola recently was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to defrauding at least 30 women in the U.S. through various online dating scams.
The Nigerian man used online dating websites to meet women looking for love. Often, he pretended to be a widower whose wife died from cancer or a car wreck. Sometimes he pretended to be a member of the U.S. military.
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Sunmola convinced these women to send him at least $730,000, in addition to various merchandise. He obtained at least $1 million in laptops and other stolen electronic gear, which he then sold from his illegally operated electronics store in South Africa.
Romance scams do not discriminate based on age, gender or sexual orientation, but rely on a person’s belief in true love, according to a new study released Tuesday by the Better Business Bureau.
Victims of these scams in the U.S. and Canada have reported losing almost $1 billion over the past three years. The BBB believes many more victims are out there but are too embarrassed to report it, according to the study.
Some people even commit suicide — or consider it — after learning they have been defrauded.
Jason Adler with the Federal Trade Commission said more complaints about these scams were reported in 2017 than ever before.
“This shows no sign of stopping,” he said. “If an online love interest asks for money, it’s a scam.”
In January 2017, Western Union settled civil and criminal charges with the Justice Department and the FTC, agreeing to improve anti-fraud efforts and to pay $586 million to victims. The FTC settled with MoneyGram in 2009 for similar conduct.
The government is currently working to return money to victims.
Barb Sluppick of Branson has been fighting romance scams for 13 years, ever since a man contacted her on Yahoo! Messenger in 2005 while she was working from home.
They chatted for roughly three weeks. He said she was the angel he prayed God would send to him. He told her that he was from Arizona but working in Nigeria.
“Ha talked a nice game,” she said.
Then he asked if he could call her. Sluppick begrudgingly gave him her phone number. He called one morning at 2 a.m., and as soon as she heard his voice, Sluppick realized he was Nigerian from his accent.
When Sluppick told him she recognized his accent and knew he was from Nigeria, he claimed to have acquired the accent while working in the West African country for a few months. A Chicago native, Sluppick did not buy that reasoning, as she had not lost her accent after moving to Branson.
Sluppick knew he was lying and kept asking the man why he did that. After persistent questioning, the man finally stopped talking to Sluppick. She wrote a letter to a website about scams, and people started contacting her. She formed a Yahoo! group and has had more than 80,000 people come to the group for help.
Now she has a Facebook group, Romance Scams, and a website, RomanceScams.org, to warn people about these scams and allow victims to report them.
“These scams are just as prevalent now if not more prevalent than they were 13 years ago,” she said.
Sluppick said scammers are on all websites where they can make up a fake profile, often posing as a member of the military to garner trust.
“For it to work, there has to be a connection of the heart,” she said.
One expert estimates that there may be 25,000 fraudsters online at any given time, according to the BBB study. A company that screens profiles for dating companies reports that 500,000 of the 3.5 million profiles it scans every month are bogus.
“A lot of psychology is built into this kind of fraud,” said Stephanie Garland, BBB Springfield regional director.
She added that sometimes these scams take up to a year to execute, while the fraudsters gain the victim’s trust.
Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson said the best ways to avoid becoming a victim of these scams are not to share personal information online and never to send money to someone who asks for it.
Both Sluppick and Patterson said that is the biggest red flag — someone asking for money. Other red flags include requests to ship merchandise or to open bank accounts on behalf of the scammer.
Sluppick also said to be wary of people who say they live overseas or somewhere they cannot meet right away.
Patterson suggested researching the person you meet online by Googling their name and photo. You can even Google the things they write — which could be part of a script — to see if it’s been used before.
“The internet makes our lives easier every day, but it also makes it easier for scams,” he said.
If you have been a victim of a romance scam, experts encourage you to report it to local authorities, the FBI, FTC and the dating site.
