An 83-year-old Goodyear man thought he had finally found love again. Instead, his family says, he was taken for more than $200,000 in an elaborate online romance scam that emptied his bank accounts and pushed his credit to the brink.
Relatives say the con played out over months, with constant online conversation, carefully staged documents and sham business deals that convinced him to send large cashier’s checks and other payments until there was almost nothing left.
The victim’s stepson, Patrick McCormack, told family investigators the scheme started nearly a year ago with a Facebook message from a woman calling herself “Erika Welson,” who claimed to be in her 20s. Family members say the scammers sent what looked like a North Carolina ID and a foreign passport, then roped the man into fake gold purchases. He ultimately sent cashier’s checks that included $8,000, $7,000 and nearly $44,000, as reported by 12News. “They played on the emotions of an elderly man that is lonely,” McCormack said.
How the con worked
Scammers in these cases often mix a whirlwind romance with supposedly urgent investments or emergencies, slowly building trust before turning up the pressure for cash. Law enforcement sometimes calls this hybrid of romance and investment fraud “pig butchering,” because criminals keep grooming the victim until they think there is nothing left to squeeze…