I FELL IN LOVE with a con man
It’s easy to see how an attractive suitor could so easily turn a head. If you’re newly single and facing your middle years, who wouldn’t love a fairy-tale ending? But a growing number of criminals are taking advantage of this. New figures show there was a 20% increase in bank-transfer romance fraud in 2020 – with the average loss per victim at almost £8,000*. Carolyn Woods lost much, much more. And she wants her story to be a warning to others…
It was almost closing time when a striking man, dark-haired and impeccably dressed, walked into the clothes boutique where I worked. I helped him try on a jacket, and he told me his name was Mark and that he was a Swiss banker. He’d flown in from Geneva, and was planning to buy Cotswold Airport. Before he left, he asked for my number and minutes later my phone pinged: ‘Did I turn your head?’
‘A few degrees perhaps,’ I replied.
That evening, while I was
