Last week, Oak Bay Police investigated a case of a “romantic fraud scam” in which a resident was slowly manipulated into losing a significant amount of money.
On August 8th, police began their investigation after a woman came forward saying she had sent over $20,000 to a man she had never met before.
She was manipulated by the man who convinced her over a period of eight months to send her the money.
The victim of this fraud only ceased to send the man money because while trying to send him additional funds, her financial advisor questioned her intention to send such a large sum of money to someone she never met.
Oak Bay Police are now urging residents to refer to the Canada Anti-Fraud website as a point of reference any time someone requests money from them that may seem suspicious.
This is the latest of several money scams reported in Oak Bay over the past few months.
In June a businessman was duped of $8,000 in a BC Hydro scam, in July, another Oak Bay resident was defrauded out of a significant amount of money through a sophisticated internet scam and phony customer service scheme.
Another fraud was reported in July as well when a resident was scammed of thousands in a Visa scam amounting in losses of nearly $15,000.
Police say this latest resident’s incident is still under investigation.
