Woman scammed out of $45,000 after three dates: 'He stopped paying'
A UK woman was scammed out of $45,000 in a matter of 30 minutes after meeting a man on a dating app.
Angela Whitbread, 45, attended just three 10-minute dates with guardsman Nathan Walker, which resulted in the sizeable scam.
Following their brief meetings, the soldier asked Whitbread to be a guarantor on loans he was taking out.
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When Walker asked Whitbread to help her with a small loan of $90, things didn't seem awry. ITV
Sharing her story on British TV program This Morning, Whitbread admitted she went on the dates after being encouraged by her friends to meet new people following her separation from her partner of seven years.
The pair hit it off immediately after matching on an unnamed app.
"We swapped numbers and were chatting away. It was quite flattering, coming out of a relationship," Whitbread said.
When Walker asked Whitbread to help her with a small loan of $90, things didn't seem awry.
"He said to me that his phone contract would be cut off and he wouldn't be able to speak to me or his daughter. So he was making me feel kind of sorry for him," she explained.
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Nathan Walker received 32 months in prison for fraud. ITV
"I've always been taught to help people out if they need it, and that's just what I was doing."
Things escalated when Walker contacted her again for a larger loan, blaming a former girlfriend for leaving him with "loads of debt."
Revealing he sent her a "link for a guarantor loan", Whitbread decided to help Walker, claiming he was "playing on [her] heartstrings."
"He said, 'If you do this, I promise I'll actually pay the loan and you won't have to pay anything. I will pay it all'," she recalled.
"And I thought, 'Surely this guy has got family, maybe he can ask his family?' And he actually said to me that he didn't have any family, so then I agreed to be the guarantor."
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Angela was scammed out of $47,000 after 30 minutes worth of dates. Supplied
The story took a turn for the worse when the loan requests kept coming.
"He made them for about three months and then he stopped paying," Whitbread said, claiming her debt began to surge.
"He kept on saying, 'Oh, I can't afford it, I've got to pay this out for my daughter and stuff as maintenance'," she shared.
"So it kind of left me in a quandary. I needed to pay this money but I also needed to keep a roof over my head and pay all of my bills at the same time. So it was very stressful."
Whitbread noted Walker never asked her on a proper date.
He was eventually found guilty of committing 10 counts of fraud to three different women and four financial institutions, and sentenced to 32 months in prison.
Whitbread noted the man never asked her on a proper date. AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
In total, Whitbread had provided upwards of $47,000 to Walker.
Despite his sentence, Whitbread was still forced to pay off his loans.
"As a result of him not paying these loads, I actually had to get a loan out from my bank to keep them away from me because they were going to send the bailiffs after me, basically, because I wasn't paying them and he wasn't contacting them or anything." she shared.
"So I had to get a loan out from my bank, pay the loan off and I've had to downsize everything from bills to food to not going out, no holidays, everything."
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