The Woman Who Took Down Her Scam Partner | This Morning

[Music] now every year millions of people go online looking for love hoping for the best but never expecting the worst but for our next guest lynn hawes the worst truly happened when the man she thought could be the love of her life turned out to be a con artist yeah after a whirlwind romance with john not his real name things started to unravel and when he began asking lynn for money embroiling her in an international scam which saw her lose a hundred thousand pounds now along with seven other brave people lynn has shared their story in the new series love rats oh goodness smith a lot of money and yeah and hearing it like that is just it's really really harsh now nelly talk take us back to when you first started dating online was it byron how did that look for you yeah i first started dating uh through a dating nap and yeah everything was going really good i was getting lots of dates but not turning up always always saying sorry i can't turn up but this one person sort of drew me in the best and what what was it about that one person i just don't i can't explain it he just it was just so gentle and nice and he enjoyed everything i enjoyed and he just i don't know there's just something special i i can't explain but something and so and how so so you meet on the app and normally on these things you match someone else and you go through your interests and i suppose conversation starts to unfold at what point do you meet up how long has how long are conversations going back and forward for uh a good few weeks we're talking for hours and hours literally getting to know each other quite well actually i felt like i'd known him for a heck of a lot longer and is that just fire messages phone calls all sorts yeah so you actually you actually spoke to him and heard his physical voice yeah yeah but you also met him yeah yeah i met him first to first face the face yeah see that's the intriguing part for me is because when we say oh you've got scandal of 100 grand you would imagine that it's one of those random messages that spam that you get where yeah you know i need help for this that and the other one you actually met this is yeah he did actually yeah he looked like his picture so i remember saying touching him saying you are actually real because you know you just don't suppose i remember when my mum started using those apps i'm like are they real do you know and i'd be like on standby waiting for her when she'd been on a date finding out there's some crazy people on there and some people that put pictures on 25 years older or younger and they just completely not like it so yeah it's completely just like it's and i suppose that's probably the worst that you thought it could be yeah it might get there and it might sort of be like a moment where it's not the person that you thought it could be but i think that that's something that's really going to raise people's eyebrows when uh well know that they're watching and and they they start talking about this story with their friends is that you met this guy this isn't a digital scam this isn't what it says on you know if you do not send money to people you don't meet and also people that you do meet yeah yeah you get to meet that one out i mean so yeah so what happens that day so you meet up what do you do you go for dinner dinner at the local pub uh talked for quite a while went home and then the next day he asked meet up again yes in par gates it's a local sort of nice place to walk or that mess up the next day we must have talked at the front for about six or seven hours but i could talk to him the conversation just flowed there was no sat deadly you know you didn't know what to talk about it just flowed so i just felt i just felt like i'd known him so you have a couple of nice days you've been talking now for a few weeks you feel relaxed in his company properly relaxed so when does this sort of can you send me money conversation begins that doesn't it was me that offered him money and how and how does that look how did that happen uh right uh he was working abroad something important he couldn't really discuss it so anyone in his dad died suddenly so he asked me to come to dubai with them so i went over to buy uh and once again you met him there no i didn't meet him there was someone else that met me unfortunately he couldn't make her i was like oh four days in dubai now anyway uh he wanted me to do the things that he was meant to do look at go through his dad's will sought out all that sign it you know he trusted me to do that so i was quite like oh you trust me to do that how long had it been at that point uh maybe six seven months okay yeah six seven months of talking did you at the time did you well i suppose not did you find any of that a little bit odd that he didn't he couldn't make it to dubai no because i've got a friend that her someone she knows worked for some agency i can't yeah and they said that that that can happen they're not even allowed to tell the wives what part of the country might go into so i i thought well yeah that's quite normal even though i've not come across it i thought yeah well my friend had said that someone had worked for some secret agency but they couldn't even tell the family where they were going so far oh right okay so that's norm did think it was a bit strange but yeah going all that way and then then all of a sudden say no i'm not coming you're going to be a friend yeah i know i know but i think i've been hooked in by then right yeah you know and it was yeah so he was in love with him yeah crazy isn't it but yeah i was we all do funny things when we're in love and if you are in love with someone you will do anything for them but finding an emotional connection as well that's the key isn't it so yeah i think looking back we can see what he's doing he took you in with the emotion at its highest level you just couldn't believe it so you you obviously that first time you offered so you offered yeah to help him with money and how how much was that the first time 10 000 but what he'd made me he asked me to look after the document and i put it in my passport put it in me back this document had to come off it's a money laundering documents i can't remember exactly it had gone so i was like oh dear okay right you know the trouble you're going to cause us uh this is going oh this is all for nothing how much does it cost somebody place it ten thousand pound we haven't got it and all this and i'm like it's my fault yeah i'll pay for it right so he's he's he's already yeah he's already worked out the sort of person i am and i felt so bad i thought i'll do that no no no you can't pay for it no no that went on for a while and he said right we'll take you up on your offer okay yeah so that's the ten thousand pounds how do we get from ten thousand to a hundred yeah bizarrely it's uh because when the money come over it because it needed to be changed from dollars to english money it was captain evolve which he had to pay weekly uh monthly to keep it there it was there for a long time right yeah so that's that's the the reason for the money so this is so this is your relationship hang on sorry sorry i apologize say that again i don't understand that bit say that again so you give him 10 and then 20. and then he said no i'll give him ten thousand pounds that was to pay for apparently assistant the document yeah right so that was all sorted when it was brought over uh the money to england yeah because it hadn't been transferred from dollars to english money right it had to be had to be kept there in some sort of vault this is what this is what she's doing this is what i've been told and then keeping it oh yeah and there's problems it just all it's okay so so this is this is john of we have as we said before john daniel's real name so this is john this is the situation and then you meet his friend yeah dog dog doug was the person i met in dubai was philip but apparently john had said to me he's messing up he's not doing it right he's not following i'm getting rid of him i'm going to introduce dorky you can trust him he'll sort it out he'll take care of you make sure you're all right because i was so stressed at that time uh yeah meet doug yeah introducing his dog he's going to sort all this out and get it all sorted so you don't need to worry anymore you'll get your money back and then you started a digital relationship with him sorry i bet him i met him come to london okay every week better yeah in the process i'd fallen out with uh with john you know what so now you're now dating doug no i didn't date dog i was just meeting dog to try and stop work work out this money to you know how we're going to get sorted so i could get my money back and it can all be sorted that was my main focus because i'd loan money off my friends that was more important for me to you know get my friends money back and it was just a process i think because i'd fallen out with john because of everything that was going on well of course and it was just it was just yeah so then how how did you what at what point did you realize i'm gone i'm getting fleeced here they're taking me money and then at what point did you call the police the police come the day before come to london the last time i've given money and said oh we believe uh you're being scammed no i don't believe so right you you get on the phone now and tell him the police are here they believe you're being scammed you won't hear from him again so i dead and he said lynn don't worry they're doing the job do not worry i've got nothing to worry about so i was like all right that's not the case is it so i was sort of at the time you are i was actually in such a state when i look back now i don't actually know what was going through my head yeah yeah but then the next day he phoned me when he was meant to be in israel and come up united kingdom so i was right right this is it and then you worked with the police yeah jason said we need to do something so we set up a sting so i had to speak to them for about three months all of them knowing what i did because i'm going to get you and you did in the end yeah yeah yeah set up and and doug was arrested yeah he was arrested he got they they've not caught there's there was a maybe 10 15 people all together that i met right doug was the only person that was arrested he got three years 12 months i think and then john the initial contact that you made he's never still like that's that he's still at large this this is just so horrible that you've had to go through this and yes you know one of them have been convicted but it's just not okay that this is this happens horribly if you had any advice for somebody now dating online but hearing this story and thinking hang on a minute this is all sounding a little bit too close yeah what would your advice be dating online i would red flags look out for the red flags i never knew any red flags never if someone asked you to go to hangouts or anything else that's a red flag email yeah me to meet the person if they make excuses you know i i just wouldn't go online dating to be honest there's so much there's so much uh there's so many scammers on that i just say it you know keep your family involved always i was segregated for my but he met he chose that so everything was just between me and him so it got it got to the stage where it was just yeah yeah listen to them red flags if something's too good to be true uh yeah well i'm happy because i know that you have found love scenes yeah yeah that's exactly what we want this is thank you you

Channel: This Morning

Views: 58,631

Keywords: this morning, this morning itv, holly willoughby, phillip schofield, this morning funniest moments, this morning interviews, alison hammond, itv, Lynn Hawes, love rat

Id: L_D4WdpzNiY

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 01 2022