West End actress Marisha Wallace says she was ‘messed up’ for a long time after falling for a master manipulator who conned her out of all of her life savings – and says these men use dating apps to find their victims
Modern-day dating is exhausting enough without the fear of getting scammed – but one woman was conned out of her life savings by a man she met online.
Marisha Wallace, 39, met a new guy through a dating app, and was pretty impressed by what she saw, but quickly fell into a money scheme trap and lost thousands. She was love struck by his apperance, and said he was attentive – quite different from her usual type.
The West End actress had not long seperated from her husband of ten years, and was excited for a fresh start in London while appearing in the Dream Girls production. She matched with the man who told her he was an accounts manager at a financial institution and started going on dates. Her new man would call her after every show, but at first, his attentiveness never felt “over the top” as she knew she wasn’t after anything too serious.
A few weeks into their fling, the bloke mentioned he had a good return on an investment and Marisha told him she had plans of making some money on her savings, with hopes to buy her mum a house. With no reason to distrust her lover, she was intrigued. He told Marisha about his ‘accounts manager’, and she gave him a call.
The actress, who also appeared in in Celebrity Big Brother, recalled how they had an “in-depth” conversation about her money and how it would be invested in currency trading. He assured her she could monitor her investments online and was excited. She deposited £20,000 and hoped for the best.
She was then overjoyed to see a few weeks later she’d made £2,500 and told Metro: “I was in Vienna on holiday in August when I logged into my account. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, it’s working!’ Then [he] called and asked if I got my return. It felt great, so I went and bought a designer purse.”
The so-called accounts manager reportedly called her two weeks later and told her about another event where she could get a higher return if she invested even more. Tempted by the previous win, she then put her life savings into the account, depositing £40,000. But it wasn’t long before she got a gut feeling something was wrong, and contacted him to find out what was happening to her money.
“I called and I called and he didn’t answer. Until this point, whenever I rang him he would pick up no matter what. When he didn’t, I knew something wasn’t right and I started feeling sick,” Marisha told the publication. She she rang her lover out of desperation to tell him she wanted her money pulled from the scheme.
When he told her to trust him and try and stay calm she said she knew something was wrong. She then realised it was a scam and her lover was in on it as well. She knew he was her only link to her money, so played innocent and invited him over. While chatting she casually asked him to remind her what his surname was – and she claimed he gave her a different name to before.
The star then reportedly contacted his company, who didn’t recognise the name she’d given, but once she sent them a photograph, was contacted by the company lawyer who told her he was a receptionist at the firm. Following Marisha’s enquiry, the company investigated the man’s activity and brought him in for questioning. He reportedly confessed that he had taken her money and sent it to an account in Turkey. Because it was offshore, Marisha had no chance of getting it back.
Marisha said the dating scam was the “wost thing” that has happened to her in her life. “It’s the betrayal of it. Before it happens to you, you think people are inherently good, but there are evil people in this world. Professional scammers, for whom this is their job.”
When she tried to report it to the police, she was told they couldn’t do anything as she had given the money willingly, according to The Metro. She now reconises she had been a victim of organised crime and said a lot fo these men are on dating apps and “prey on vulnerable women”. Marisha is now in a happy relationship but said the whole situation had “messed” her up for a long time before realising she had fallen for a master manipulator.
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