Love, lies, loss: Thai woman loses 3 million baht after 1 month with romance scammer

A 65 year old Thai woman lost 3 million baht after a month-long online conversation with a romance scammer she met on a Facebook dating group.

The victim’s son urged Channel 3 to share his mother’s experience as a warning to others who use dating applications or engage in online dating. He recently found out that his mother had been scammed and accompanied her to file a complaint with the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau.

The son explained that his mother was a state-owned enterprise retired employee and had been a widow for 13 years. She decided the time was right after over a decade to meet someone else and joined a Facebook dating group in September. She met a good-looking man and talked to him. The man flirted with her for the first few weeks before inviting her to invest.

According to the son, the man convinced his mother to download an investment application, and she initially invested 30,000 baht. The victim made a profit of 2,000 baht from her first investment and managed to withdraw the money, making her trust that this was a real investment scheme.

The scammer then convinced her to invest more money and not to share the investment with others. The victim followed his instructions and invested another 500,000 baht. The profit shown in the application increased but the man asked the victim not to withdraw the money.

He told the victim that she would earn more if she invested more. The victim then borrowed 2 million baht from a bank and invested the whole amount in the application.

Investment scam

When the victim tried to withdraw her investment, the man suggested that she discuss it with the administrator of the application. The scam administrator said the victim would have to pay a 500,000 baht withdrawal tax to access her money. She paid the tax but was still unable to access her investment and benefits.

The son said he noticed changes in his mother’s behaviour. She seemed addicted to her mobile phone and was always looking for a quiet, secret place to use it. Concerned, he secretly checked his mother’s phone and discovered the conversation with the scammer.

The son said he explained the problem to his mother and later took her to the police station to complain. Officers have frozen four bank accounts linked to the scam but have yet to catch the suspects behind the operation.

The son wants to use this story to warn others about the dangers of investing with strangers on dating applications.