Make sure all they want to steal is your heart

OVER the New Year break an email popped into my website inbox from someone called ‘Trudie’.
Nothing unusual in that – I frequently get great comments (very flattering, many thanks!) from purchasers of my novels and audiobooks as well as readers of this column. But this email was a bit different. Attached was a photo of an extremely pretty, smiling teenager with the message she hoped she could become my ‘girlfriend’.
I know I’m in trousers in the photos on my website but do I really look, err, male? (Check this out for yourself; the website’s listed below!). And anyway, would I honestly be interested in befriending online someone a fraction of my age?
The sad truth is that many have been duped into sending money to internet conmen posing as would-be girlfriends/boyfriends. Romance scams robbed 9,000 Britons nearly £100m last year. Thanks to online dating and the pandemic, these crimes are more sophisticated and prevalent than ever.
All part of what’s usually known as ‘Nigerian scam’, because Nigeria’s where it usually originates. And it works. One Nigerian conman received a 12-year jail sentence after scamming $1.3 million from victims.
Nigerian scam has many variations, but its dating or romance scam, in addition to requesting money for college fees, sick relations etc, is a bit different. The fraudsters upload fake glamorous photos, mostly of Europeans claiming to be foreign specialists working in Nigeria or Ghana.
After they initiate some correspondence and perhaps even send some cheap gifts, they’ll inevitably be almost on their way to meet you, but something will happen to them. They’ll get robbed, roughed up (you get the message) and, naturally, you’ll be their only contact to beg for financial help.
Scams so obvious they could have been made up by members of the present UK government – themselves world leaders in rewriting the textbook on incompetence and being economical with the truth.
Oh, and if ‘Trudie’ happens to be reading this and wants some ‘additional feedback’, here’s two additional words, mate, and one of them is ‘off’.
Nora Johnson’s psychological crime thrillers ‘The Sentinel’, ‘No Safe Place’, ‘Betrayal’, ‘The Girl in the Woods’, ‘The Girl in the Red Dress’, ‘No Way Back’, ‘Landscape of Lies’, ‘Retribution’, ‘Soul Stealer’, ‘The De Clerambault Code’ (www.nora-johnson.net) available online as eBook (€0.99; £0.99), Apple Books, paperback and audiobook. All profits to Costa del Sol Cudeca cancer charity.
Nora Johnson’s opinions are her own and are not necessarily representative of those of the publishers, advertisers or sponsors.