St. Thomas police are encouraging the public to educate themselves about online scams after a woman in her 50s was bilked out of $80,000.
The St. Thomas woman accepted a friend request on Facebook from someone posing as a man living in Europe last spring. The two began to regularly message back and forth online before the man convinced the woman he was going to travel to Canada to live with her once he had enough money to cover his expenses.
The woman sent the man money over several months. However, with each transfer of funds the man would come up with a new excuse to delay meeting in person and requested more cash, police said.
The con is known as a romance scam and has appeared online in many different forms. Police are hopeful others will learn from this incident and said people should visit antifraudcentre.ca to learn about other online scams.
"Protect yourself and your money," police said.
