Online dating scam hits UK women

A former air stewardess has told how she lost her £50,000 life savings to a Nigerian scam that targets UK dating websites.

According to a report in the Sun, divorcee Brenda Parke, 62, believed she was in a phone and email relationship with a blond 46-year-old Dutch widower called Bradford who claimed he was living in Birmingham with his 14-year-old daughter.

But he was really a conman in the Nigerian city of Lagos.

After a month, he claimed he and his daughter had been in a car crash while on a business trip to Africa.

Brenda wired £9,000 for "hospital bills" then £40,000 for "flights" back to the UK, but she went to Birmingham airport and no one arrived.

She says: "My conscience would not let me leave a young girl in that situation so I sent the money."

Brenda reveals her cautionary tale on Channel 4 documentary 419: The Internet Romance Scam - named after the number for fraud in Nigeria's penal code.

Furniture painter Caroline, 55, of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, says he later confessed his true identity as a Nigerian called Steven - and insisted he was in love with her.

Caroline, feeling vulnerable after the death of her mum, flew to South Africa to share a holiday with him.
 
She tells the show: "At the airport he had tears in his eyes and I did too. It was really exciting, like Christmas when you were a kid."
 
They rented a flat in South Africa for three months and she later flew home - before investing £30,000 in supposed oil deals in Africa which police believe never existed.

Amazingly a relationship by phone still continues - as Caroline struggles to meet her bills. She admits: "Sad, isn't it, so late in life? It's insanity."

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