Romance fraud cost victims over £106 million last year, the equivalent of £200 an hour. When Tracy Cray was tapped up by a romance scammer, she played them at their own game
Scrolling through her notifications on an online dating site, one caught Tracy Cray’s eye. ‘Ritchie’ was tall, dark and handsome and claimed to be an architect living in a smart part of London with a teenage daughter. The charming stranger, who began wooing her with romantic poetry and talk of a future together, sounded too good to be true – and he was. But, rather than walking away from what she discovered was a calculated con, with a 35 year career in combatting fraud, Tracy played along – so she could expose the methods used by romance scammers.
Essex-based Tracy, 59, says: “What shocked me most wasn’t the story itself – it was how organised it was. This wasn’t simply one person trying their luck, but a system. I had the advantage of knowing what to look for, because of my profession, but many people don’t. They just see kindness, attention and care. That’s what makes these scams so dangerous.”
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Managing director of Chargebacks911, a company specialising in helping businesses combat fraud, Tracy joined an online dating app after an evening out in 2023. She says: “A number of my friends and family had done it and were saying that it was my time to get myself back out there.” Taking the plunge after 12 years of being single, she continues: “I didn’t think too much about it until I started to get messages from different people. The one from this guy who said his name was Ritchie stood out. He seemed genuine and sincere.”
Claiming to be a widower, originally from Sweden, he was a similar age to Tracy. She says: “I had a look at some of his other photos. There was a picture of him and his dog, and his child and one of him obviously on holiday on the beach.” They began messaging, but ‘Ritchie’ quickly insisted they both come off the site and start using What’s App. She adds: “That was probably a first red flag, but he said it was because he’d been receiving loads of emails and he would like just to concentrate on me.”
Corresponding up to 15 times a day, Tracy says: “He said he was an architect, he’d done a job in Luxembourg that he was waiting to be paid for and he was waiting for his next job to come through – this time in Turkey. Then he wanted to retire and go into property management. Every day I’d have a nice ‘good morning’ message, plus he’d send these poetry quotes. It was flattering.”
Tracy, who also spent 35 years combating bank fraud, began to do some digging. She says: “He told me where he worked. I checked Companies House for the firm – there was nothing there. There was nothing about him on LinkedIn either, which was strange. And he had no Facebook profile.”
A phone call between them also seemed odd. He’d told her he was living in the UK with his aunt, but she says: “I questioned him again as to where he was based, and that’s when he said Greenwich in London – but he pronounced it ‘green witch’. Nobody who lives there would call it that.” Suspicions aroused, Tracy took the photos purporting to be ‘Ritchie’ and, using a technique called reverse imaging, scanned the internet to find their original source.
Her search revealed ‘Ritchie’ did indeed exist – and was living a blameless life in America having had his photos stolen online. She says: “I was upset. I suppose because of my profession, I couldn’t believe that, of all those who actually messaged me, the one that I felt was genuine, was probably the only one that wasn’t.”
It was time to turn the tables on her scammer, playing along with the deception to glean valuable insight to help others. Looking closely at Ritchie’s messages, she noticed changes in grammar and spelling – “almost as if it was different people responding”. She says: “I thought, ‘this isn’t just one guy, this is a team.’”
Unaware he’d been rumbled, ‘Ritchie’ said he was travelling to Turkey for work, sending her his flight and ticket details and even ringing from the airport. Then he went quiet for a few days. She knew his next contact would be saying he’d had his belongings stolen and she was right. She says: “He said he’d lost all his credit cards and was struggling for money.”
Telling him to get an emergency card from his bank, he then sent photos of an aircraft flying out to an oil rig – which an image search revealed were of someone else. Having failed to extract cash from her with the theft story, the scammers tried a new tactic. Tracy says: “He told me he had good news and I replied ‘Oh, I bet you’re going to get paid’. The message came back ‘how did you know that?’ I said – ‘just a lucky guess!’”
Alleging he was getting a £2 million cheque he wanted her to take receipt of, he became annoyed when she asked why it wasn’t a bank transfer – ramping up the emotional pressure, moving between affection, anger, guilt, combined with promises of a shared future Then silence. Next, Tracy got a further What’sApp asking for an email and home address for a courier who would deliver the money – this time in cash.
Making up a fake PO Box number and email account, containing the word scammers written backwards, the scammers didn’t notice – emailing her saying the ‘package’ was halted at US customs and she must contact them immediately or face arrest. She says: “I suspected I was going to be asked to part with money for this package. This had gone on for nine months, I’d got what I needed. It was time to close it off.”
Tracy sent ‘Ritchie’ a message – telling him she had ‘good news’. She laughs: “I told him that far from him being alone in the world I had found his ‘twin brother’ in America. Even then the scammers came back and accused this other chap of stealing their identity!” Sending the fraudster one last note, she says: “I told him I’d been stringing him along, I’d had my fun but realised long ago that there was no single ‘Ritchie’ and that I was reporting everything. They just replied ‘God bless, Tracy’.”
She alerted the dating site and Report Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime. She has heard nothing back. She says: “These people are spending so much time building trust and giving false hope to people who are sometimes very vulnerable. Romance scams take confidence, security and dignity, as well as money.”
Advising anyone using dating apps to carry out due diligence, she adds: “Even the most private people will leave an online fingerprint somewhere. I even checked the Electoral Role for traces of ’Ritchie’.” Tracy won’t be returning to online dating in the future. She says: “I’m now with a guy I first met 40 years ago. We finally got together at a local soul music night – so there is a happy ending after all.”
*Chargebacks911 safeguards more than 2.4 billion transactions a year on behalf of clients in 87 countries around the world. It is the first global company dedicated to providing an end-to-end platform specifically designed to counter post-transactional fraud and chargeback misuse.
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