‘I’m angry at myself’: Grieving widow tricked out of £500k in two online scams

A grieving widow was scammed out of £500k after being tricked twice in less than two months by different con-men.

Anne Larkin, 55, who appeared on Good Morning Britain today to discuss her ordeal, said she felt angry at herself for “being able to be duped”.

She said the loss of her husband had turned her world “completely upside down” and allowed the fraudsters to manipulate her.

What the scammers did

Mrs Larkin, a former police-officer from East Yorkshire, met the first fraudster on an amateur photography website.

He claimed he was a US Army medic named Clinton, who was currently working in Yemen.

But the conman also claimed he had lost his wife and daughter just a few years previously.

After they had been talking for a few weeks online, the man began to ask for money, eventually trying to pressure Mrs Larkin into selling her home and car so she could send more.

Not long afterwards she was targeted by another fraudster on social media who called himself “G” and claimed to be an actor involved with a children’s charity in the US.

After losing her husband of 34 years, Graham, unexpectedly to liver and kidney failure in November 2019, Mrs Larkin was grieving and vulnerable.

‘Angry at being duped’

Speaking to GMB, she said: “When you are going through the grief of a loved one, especially of a husband, wife or partner in that sense, the grief is completely different. And it turns your world completely upside down.”

“It was easy in that sense for them to manipulate me in that way. With both I never even thought or had a hint in my head that I was being scammed.”

She added: “It makes me feel angry at myself at being able to be duped by these people.”