Friends Reunited scam: Lonely mother loses her home over fake lover
A LONELY mother-of-three lost her home after she was conned into falling in love with a fake US soldier.
Kate Roberts, 47, was swindled out of £80,000 after fraudsters posted a bogus profile on a dating website.
Miss Roberts contacted US army sergeant Mark Ray Smith, a handsome 43-year-old widower with an 11-year-old daughter, after seeing the profile on the dating area of Friends Reunited. She was convinced that Sgt Smith, whose profile contained half-naked pictures of a soldier, was in Iraq.
But months later, she visited a Cambridgeshire base where he claimed to be previously stationed – and no one had heard of him.
Police later traced calls from a Nigerian mobile phone.
Last night divorcee Miss Roberts said: “Aside from the money, I’ve lost the love of my life. I know he wasn’t real, but the feelings were real to me.
“I was taken in by this very clever gang and I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did.
“I had to sell my house to pay my debts, my credit score is through the roof so I cannot have any credit, mortgage or overdraft.
“Hundreds of other women must be being conned.”
Miss Roberts was persuaded to send money to a bank account and via Western Union after “Sgt Smith” said he wanted to buy himself out of the army so they could live together.
She paid £225 for a phoneline for him, and was called by a man with an American accent every day.
An email from “Sgt Smith” read: “I can’t help being madly in love with you. I hope I don’t wake up to find it was all a dream.”
Miss Roberts, of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, discovered she had been duped after she made a £12,000 payment for an air fare – and all contact ceased.
Leicestershire Police and the Serious Organised Crime Agency is investigating.
The US Embassy is trying to identify the soldier in the pictures.