Woman, 77, 'totally convinced' by deep fake loses £17K in twisted romance scam
20 December 2024, 16:33
A 77-year-old woman who was under the impression she was in an online relationship with another woman handed £17,000 to scammers who conned her with a deep fake.
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Nikki MacLeod sent gift cards and made bank and Paypal transfers, assuming they were being received by a real woman she was in a relationship with online.
The pensioner was initially hesitant but felt reassured by video messages, which she now knows were fake AI technology clips made by scammers.
"I am not a stupid person but she was able to convince me that she was a real person and we were going to spend our lives together."
Ms MacLeod told BBC Radio Scotland's Morning Programme she was lonely after her parents died during lockdown and her long-term relationship broke down.
She began chatting to people online before meeting who she thought was a woman named Alla Morgan. Ms MacLeod was led to believe the woman Alla Morgan working on a North Sea oil rig.
The deep fake scammer concocted a story about how she needed to use Steam gift cards to get an internet connection on the rig.
They convinced the elderly victim to buy the cards, typically used for buying video games, that she needed to buy one so they could carry on speaking. While she initially hesitated, Ms MacLeod ended up buying hundreds of pounds worth of the cards.The retired university lecturer repeatedly asked Alla Morgan for a live video call.
But every time she requested one it was either refused or failed to work. At that point she began to receive recorded video messages made by AI technology.
She said: “She sent me a video to say 'Hi Nikki, I am not a scammer, I am on my oil rig', and I was totally convinced by it."
A few weeks later she sent me another video, also on the oil rig with bad weather in the background. This was before she started asking me for all this money.
"The scammers also sent documents, including a company Alla Morgan claimed to work for, convincing Ms LacLeod to splash out on the fake romance.
She was also tricked into spending $2,500 (£2,000) after getting duped by a scammer pretending to be from Alla Morgan’s HR department asking for money to pay for a helicopter.
She eventually realised she was being duped when her bank warned she had been a victim of fraud when she tried to make another payment to a different bank account she thought belonged to Alla Morgan.
It is still unknown where the image of Alla Morgan came from.Police Scotland have said they are investigating the case.
The use of deep fakes online has become a growing concern as they are also often used to create pornographic images of real people.
End Violence Against Women Coalition director Andrea Simon told LBC this week: "It's been called an invisible threat because many victims may be completely unaware that they've been targeted at all.
"Sometimes when they do become aware that they've been targeted for deepfake sexual abuse they don't even know the extent of how far those images gave been shared or where they've been hosted across the internet.”
A spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs' Council said: "Creating and sharing sexually explicit images of someone without their consent, including deepfakes, is deeply pervasive and can have a traumatic impact on victims."
It's important that victims understand that these are serious crimes and feel confident in reporting offences to the police so that action can be taken.”
