It was a place in cyber space called romancematch.com where searching for your soul mate was only a click away. An East Texas woman believed she found someone special, but never thought the man she felt so strongly for would steal from her.
This scam affects thousands everyday and cost this East Texan thousands of dollars. 45 year old Gloria Cain of Longview fell victim to a romance scam.
"In September, I had went on romancematch.com I wasn't in there long enough to get the trial period over with," says Gloria.
But it was long enough to meet someone. For 2 months, Gloria says she believed she was talking to this man Eddie Hiroe of Virginia.
"Everyday, 3 to 4 times a day. I talked a lot to him about God," says Gloria.
She thought she had found someone special, so when he asked her for a favor she was willing to help.
"He had to go to Nigeria because he was presenting a contract. He was a computer scientist.Then a day or two later he mentioned he made a computer program for these people in Oklahoma and needed to get that check to finish out getting his plane ticket. He said they would not send it to Nigeria," says Gloria.
The $2,500 check was sent to Gloria, but before the check could clear her account, Eddie said he needed the money. So Gloria says she got money out of her account and sent it to him in Nigeria. Shortly after Gloria sent the money, the correspondence ended and she realized she had been scammed.
"What goes around comes around. One day he will get his whether I ever see it or not because you reap what you sew and I'm a firm believer of that," says Gloria.
Gloria hopes others will learn from here mistake.As far as dating on the Internet, she says that's a thing of the past. Gloria says after surfing the web, she found that Nigerian dating scams are far too common. One website even has a database of stock photos scammers use on Internet dating websites.
