KANSAS CITY, MO. — A man told Clay County Sheriff’s deputies last week that he may have lost $120,000 in an online romance scam.
The man told deputies that he was contacted by a TikTok user who identified themselves as a woman named “Lisa.”
The pair struck up a conversation that turned romantic before “Lisa” asked the man to take their conversation over to the encrypted messaging service Telegram.
That’s when “Lisa” started having emergencies and asked the man to help pay for car repairs or gas money.
Deputies say the man would use CashApp and Bitcoin machines in Kearney and Excelsior Springs to send funds to “Lisa.”
Eventually, “Lisa” asked for money to pay back taxes on a house she needed to sell.
When the man recounted his conversations with “Lisa” to a family member, the family member told the man she believed he was being scammed.
Deputies say victims in such romance scams might be very secretive about the conversations and don’t want to lose the connection.
Because the man used cryptocurrency, deputies say the chances of him getting his money back are slim.
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