Callous ways of online romance scammers exposed as cop turns private eye

Barrack Point's Kylee Dennis set up an agency, Two Face Investigations, earlier this year after rightly suspecting a friend's 78-year-old mother had fallen in love with a man who didn't exist.

She said she had since picked up the phone to 25-30 victims of romance scams, none of whom had reported their losses through official channels such as Scamwatch.

"If your mum, an 80-year-old widow, came to you with a black eye and a broken heart, you'd be devastated," she said.

"But if she came home with a broken heart because she'd been the victim of an online dating scam, there's a chance you'd be cranky.

"People don't want to talk about romance scams because they're embarrassed and ashamed. And other people are very judgemental. We've got to change that."

Mrs Dennis's clients have included a man aged 86, who gave away $200,000 in savings. Her hardest-hit lonely heart was a woman who lost more than $500,000 to a callous stranger.

Another client was a 64-year-old survivor of domestic violence who took $100,000 out of her superannuation, only for the money and the man to evaporate.

"She believed someone was going to love her. And they broke her heart into a million pieces," Mrs Dennis said.

"She said, 'I'd rather have lost money than have my heart broken. Now I've got to pick myself up from the ground, and I'm just devastated'.

"We're not talking about months that this happens in, this is years - years of manipulation and grooming."

Mrs Dennis concedes that by the time her clients come to her, it is too late to recoup their money.

She sometimes poses as her client and interacts with the scammer, but says this is more aimed at building her understanding and knowledge of scamming practice.

She says her job has two parts: talking to victims and confirming whether or not they are talking to a scammer, then formulating strategies that can help them move forward - changing bank accounts, getting the person in contact with a doctor or other professional.

The second part is educational. Mrs Dennis has taken on a public speaking role aimed at building awareness of scamming practices.

"My whole mission is to stand on top of a mountain and yell it out to everybody," she said.

"It's OK to go on a dating app, but these are the red flags. I want to get to people before they hand over their money."

Chief among the red flags: poor spelling and grammar. Persuasive and manipulative language and all-to-early declarations of love are also among the signs.

"They'll say, 'what sort of sport do you like?', 'tell me about your loved ones' - very short, sharp questions - simple things like, 'what's your favourite food?'. I know it sounds quite normal, but it's quite similar, the language they use. It's scripted," she said.

"The grammar is appalling - the language, sentence structure. Appalling. That's a typical red flag.

"They will profess their very quickly - pretty much straight away. They will make sure they say, 'don't tell your family and friends, they won't understand.

"If they cannot meet you in person within two weeks, walk away."

She has seen the same scam multiple times, where the scammer poses as a businessperson who has to travel to Dubai and buy gems. They back up the ruse with photos of themselves in Dubai.

"But those are just stock photos".

While scam reports in Australia rose from 507,000 in 2022 to just over 600,000 last year, the ACCC's National Anti-Scam Centre recorded a 13 per cent fall in reported losses from scams, to $2.74 billion. But there was little change in the amount of reports from people aged over 65 in this time, and the value of losses in this group grew, by more than 13 per cent.

The figures are based on data from Scamwatch, ReportCyber, the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange, IDCARE, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Romance scams accounted for just over $200m of the losses, behind investment scams and remote access scams, which together resulted in more than $1.5b in reported losses.

Reports from the public are considered critical intelligence for the National Anti-Scam Centre and its partners to detect and disrupt scam activities.

Mrs Dennis began her 14-year policing career as a general duties officer in Marrickville, Flemington, Auburn and Bankstown.

She said she worked as a detective, trained as a hostage negotiator and as a child protection specialist in the Illawarra before quitting the force for family reasons, 20 years ago.

The work left her well-equipped to understand peoples' emotional attachment to things, she said, and to serve as a non-judgemental confidante.

"These people are just looking for love, "she said. "Everybody wants that. There's no human being in this world who doesn't want that."