Tinder Swindler: mum-of-three loses £6k life savings to dating app crypto scammer

The nightmare began for Natalie Foster, 42, when she matched with the ‘James’ three weeks ago on the popular dating site. Natalie said that the pair hit it off immediately before he began talking incessantly about cryptocurrency a week after they first messaged.

‘James’ convinced Natalie, from Windsford, Cheshire, to open a crypto wallet, which is used to store the virtual currency. She was then convinced to upload money to the wallet and ‘trade’ crypto.

Natalie said: “I’m not a gambler but he was very convincing. He told me to put in £300 and then transfer it to a trading platform. I did it and then made £80 profit."

She then made another deposit of £100, making a further £93 profit. Natalie said that a few days after the £100 deposit, ‘James’ messaged her ad said that he following evening would be “a very big night”.

Natalie said: "He convinced me to put in even more money, so I put £2,000 down. He then said he had been in touch with his uncle who had told him there was a once-in-a-century deal about to go down and I could make 800 per cent profit.”

On ‘James’’ promise of a huge profit, Natalie withdrew everything that was left from her life savings, which amounted to £3,500, and transferred it to the crypto trading website. After this she was added to WhatsApp group chat with a man who was purporting to be her Tinder match’s uncle and another person.

Natalie said that the scammers had initially made it seem as though she had made a profit of $86,000. But this quickly dropped to zero before she was able to withdraw money from the wallet. She said: “I then contacted customer services who said I owed them 20 per cent tax to a New York Bank account totalling £20,000."

At this point ‘James’ transferred £5,000 back into her account. Natalie, who has been signed off of work due to her MS diagnosis, said: “At this point I thought it was still legit but I then talked to my ex partner and he gave me a reality check. I realised I had literally fallen for a textbook crypto scam."

Natalie, who has said that the episode has left her with suicidal though, said that none of the profits which appeared in her account ever went back to her apart from the initial £80, with the mother-of-three losing a total of £6,000. She confronted ‘James’ about the scam, to which he told her to “go and die quickly” in response.

She has since reported the scam to Action Fraud and has been working with a solicitor to retrieve her money. Natalie said: “It was my whole life savings which I inherited off my grandad - it’s left me totally distraught."

Natalie added that there were “all these red flags” that he missed, including her Tinder Swindler telling her that he was German despite not having a German accent, and using images that were “clearly just downloaded from somewhere online”. She added: “I just feel stupid and ridiculous. It's so awful - I don't know how they can do this to to other people.”