FILE: $100 bills. (NEXSTAR)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A woman looking for love says a man she met on a dating app scammed her out of thousands of dollars, and nearly $1,900 was sent to a home in Northeast Memphis.
Amber Dyer is speaking out for her mother, 76-year-old Willie Joyner of North Carolina.
“Her heart’s broken right now, so she reached out to her daughter to say hey, I’m in trouble,” she said.
Dyer said this week she learned that her mother had sent $1,900 in cash to Memphis and a total of over $7,000 in the past year to help a man she met on a dating app.
“She’s devastated,” Dyer said. “I am mad at this person for taking advantage of my mom’s loneliness and mom’s humanity in wanting to help. Makes my heart hurt for her.”
She said the man who goes by “Eddy James” told her mother he was a surgeon living in California.
Dyer said the two only talked via WhatsApp. He allegedly asked her to help fund his humanitarian efforts in Africa. Then told her he needed help after finding some gold and getting arrested in Mexico.
“After she had depleted savings and taken out cash advances on credit cards and taken out two separate loans to help this individual and nothing was being repaid, I guess the light bulb kind of went off,” Dyer said.
WREG obtained this UPS receipt from Joyner dated June 5. The package of $1,900 in cash was sent to a woman at a home in Northeast Memphis.
We found the woman listed, but she claims she never received a package and has never heard of an Eddy James. In our quest for answers, we also reached out to the mystery man but we never got an answer.
Dyer said while she doesn’t believe her mother will get her money back, she does plan to file a police report.
