A NSW woman has told how she was tricked into believing she was in an online relationship with Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin as part of a catfishing scam."I look back at it now and think about how stupid I was," the 45-year-old from regional NSW told 9news.com.au.Online scammers have been targeting fans of Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin.
"The messages were all about the show and what I liked about it, what I thought of the last two seasons and that kind of stuff," she said.Sonia said she soon became convinced that she was speaking with the real O'Loughlin - who is based in the US - because the messages indicated a deep knowledge about"I asked him what his real name was, which is information that you really need to dig for, and he knew it straight away," Sonia said.
A photo of some of the jewellery the scammer posing as O'Loughlin claimed to have bought "Sonia" as a gift.Sonia said she forked out $8500 for the customs fee to a "courier" before she realised it was a scam.Sonia said the person posing as O'Loughlin managed to convince her he was a victim of the mailing scam too.
An online search by Sonia revealed that the website was using the logo from a legitimate US bank called Trust Bank."That's when I realised I had been scammed," Sonia said.Sonia said her bank initially refused to reimburse her for any of her losses. It's a small fraction of the $570 million in total losses reported to Scamwatch during the same period.
Silly cow deserved to get ripped off
Women scam men through child support every day
Good on Sonia for coming forward to warn others about this sorts of scams running! Raising Awareness about celebrities scams is necessary and to make people careful out there! Anyone can be scammed under the right circumstances!
No sympathy. This just proves how unintelligent these scam victims are.
9NewsMelb Yes my love I need to rest. Who even says that these days