‘I’m selling my house’: Texas retiree forced to return to work after losing $500K in investment-romance scam

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Emma Caplan-Fisher

Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 5:45 AM 4 min read

‘I’m selling my house’: Texas retiree forced to instrumentality    to enactment    aft  losing $500K successful  investment-romance scam — wherefore  much  and much  Americans are falling unfortunate  to ‘financial grooming’

‘I’m selling my house’: Texas retiree forced to instrumentality to enactment aft losing $500K successful investment-romance scam — wherefore much and much Americans are falling unfortunate to ‘financial grooming’

Gary Dalrymple had conscionable signed up for the dating tract Silver Singles erstwhile Gianna, a beauteous blonde female, responded to his grin emoji message, CBS News Texas reports.

Immediately, from greeting to nighttime each day, the 2 texted, sharing things similar their goals, household and beingness experiences. About 2 weeks into these all-day affairs, Dalrymple recalled Gianna asking if helium knew thing astir cryptocurrency. Feeling unpressured, helium fto her amusement him however to invest.

Dalrymple said helium saw his funds summation arsenic the narration continued for a mates of months. At that point, Gianna asked him to get much wealth and continue. And so, with his household and friends successful the acheronian connected some his narration and investing, Dalrymple cashed retired his 401(k).

By the end, Dalrymple had mislaid astir $500,000, which helium plans to repay by coming retired of status full-time and selling his home, helium told CBS.

“It’s benignant of pugnacious … Why me? Why didn’t I drawback this? Why was I truthful shortsighted?”

Sure enough, erstwhile the Better Business Bureau’s (BBB) Monica Horton inspected the website done which Dalrymple saw his investments grow, she confirmed it was fake. It turns retired Gianna isn’t who she said she was but, instead, apt a radical of scammers trying to bargain from him, Horton explained.

The scam Dalrymple experienced is simply a blend of romance-investment fraud, noted by Horton and the BBB’s 2024 Scam Tracker Risk report. Investment was the apical BBB-reported scam past year, with cryptocurrency progressive successful astir fractional (45.3%) of those reported.

According to the study, concern and romance scams are immoderate of the riskiest scams reported by consumers, with implicit 80% of those targeted successful concern and cryptocurrency scams reporting monetary losses of a median of $5,000.

What's more, the study reveals that 26.2% of those who reported investment/cryptocurrency scams said their scammer spent clip gathering a romance oregon a relationship earlier taking their money.

Read more: An alarming 97% of older Americans are carrying indebtedness into status — here’s wherefore and 4 elemental things you tin bash if you’re stuck successful the aforesaid situation


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