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16th July 2023
10:00am BST
A woman who sent tens of thousands of dollars to her ' boyfriend' who she had never met was left devastated after finding out she was being scammed.
The woman, called Terri, had been a victim of catfishing, which is when someone uses a fake persona online to trick another person into believing they are this fake personality.
Terri had started talking to a man, who called himself Ricardo, on Facebook Messenger.
'Ricardo' had told Terri that he was a rich man from Los Angeles who was looking for someone to treat and spoil.
He explained that his work meant he spent a lot of time in Canada, and claimed he was therefore unable to meet up with Terri.
But even though they hadn't met, they got along and were speaking on the phone every day, even telling each other they were in love.
About a month into their relationship though, Ricardo asked Terri to invest $10,000 (£7,600) in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, promising her she'd be a millionaire within six months.
As the weeks and months went on, Terri ended up sending roughly $80,000 (£61,000). Unsurprisingly, this led to concern from her wider family that she was being scammed, and they tried to convince her to stop sending Ricardo the money.
Eventually, Terri's sister, Tammy, took her onto the TV show Dr Phil in the US.
On the show, Terri said there was "always an excuse" whenever she made plans to meet up with Ricardo. But she kept insisting that she believed Ricardo was real.
When the show did some investigating though, the man Terri believed to be Ricardo was in fact a man called James.
The scammer had used James' pictures and stolen his identity online to speak to Terri.
The real James told the show that this wasn't the first time he'd had his likeness stolen online, and that he had dealt with this for "over 10 years."
When Terri was told the reality, she said she was "heartbroken" to find out 'Ricardo' wasn't a real person.
But she added that she attributed no blame to James, and would not "punch him out" if she ever sees him in person.
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