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At 33 years of age, Paula Cooper felt reasonably confident she'd learned her share of life's lessons.
She was wrong.
Cooper, a Penticton resident, was a victim of an elaborate Internet scam to the sum of US$5,000 from a man she'd met on an online dating service.
About two weeks following the incident, Cooper was watching an episode on Dr. Phil warning people of the dangers of Internet scammers.
"This should have been on three months ago," Cooper said with a chuckle.
She has learned to develop a sense of humour about an incident which saddled her with a debt she hadn't planned on but also has her questioning how it occurred.
"After I found out what had happened I thought to myself 'how could I have let myself be taken advantage of?' "
Cooper, like many, leads a busy life leaving her with little spare time to meet new people. In February, she decided to give Internet dating a shot and registered with an online dating service.
A day later, she received a phone call from a man who said his name was Kevin Higgins, a 41-year-old Toronto resident. The two began to speak regularly, sharing information such as where each had grown up, what their interests were and what line of work each was in; Higgins said he was currently in Nigeria on a construction project. They also exchanged photographs.
Cooper said Higgins seemed frank and open as they got to know one another and they chatted almost daily and "he was very nice."
Higgins even played the sympathy card, telling Cooper he'd lost his parents to a car crash at 21 all while charming her with sweet-talk, expressions of his affection for her and his longing to see her in person as soon as his project wrapped up.
She estimated it was four months later when Higgins asked her to cash American Express gift cheques -- valued at US$5,000 -- and wire him the money. According to Cooper because they had been getting to know one another over time his excuse that he couldn't cash the cheque because it was in US currency sounded plausible to Cooper.
"It's not like I did a currency transaction the minute after I met him," she said.
Cooper agreed to help him out -- albeit with some trepidation but after her bank examined the cheques due to their high value and had cleared them things seemed OK at that point.
It was two weeks later when her bank card was denied access did Cooper learn from her bank that the gift cheques were actually counterfeit. Now her funds were frozen and she was on the hook for the value of the cheques.
When Cooper confronted Higgins about what had happened, he claimed his employer had given him some bad cheques and that he, too, was a victim of fraud. He also told Cooper he would be home soon and promised to repay her. That was more than two months ago.
Surprisingly Higgins continued to send Cooper e-mails even asking for her to help pay for some lawyer's fees he incurred. He provided Cooper with a name, address and phone number for his "lawyer." Cooper got in contact with a Nigerian law firm and they agreed to check into the information she'd received from Higgins.
Their response confirmed what Cooper already knew -- the name was not on the role call of lawyers in Nigeria, the address did not exist, and the person who answered when the law office called said he was not a lawyer and that it was their cell phone number.
Still Higgins was sending Cooper e-mails which gushed with his unrequited love for her and the hopes that she felt the same way about him. When she sent him an e-mail asking him point blank when he planned on repaying her Higgins tried to make her feel guilty. He wrote "do you want me or the money?"
At this point Cooper has decided to sever ties with Higgins and is working on paying the bank the money she was bilked out of.
In hindsight Cooper realized any time she'd questioned Higgins on matters relating to finances or how to contact him, he seemed to have a ready-made reply as though he was working off a script. When someone constantly flatters you and paints a rosy picture of wanting to build a beautiful life together it's easy to let down your guard and open yourself up for an Internet predator she said.
In the midst of trying to recover from being the victim of a slick, Internet con artist, Cooper has taken the lessons she's learned from this ordeal and wants her story -- as painful as it is -- out in the open for others as a warning.
She's removed her profiles from all Internet dating services using her computer only as a source for information and to stay in touch with friends.
"You do hear of people meeting on the Internet and getting married and living happy and all that," she said. "The only thing that I would say is stay with people within your local area. You want to be able to put a body and a face to the voice (on the phone and the Internet).
"Never stop asking questions," said Cooper. "And if you aren't getting the answers that make sense and that really deep down you feel good about -- just keep asking. And if the answers are all the same, generic, with no details then I would say this person doesn't really care. Just move on."
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