New Jersey Senior Scammed Out of $50,000 In ‘Sick’ Romance Scam

A New Jersey senior saw her life savings disappear in the blink of an eye after being targeted in a “sick” romance scam. An expert talked with Newsweek about how these scams work.
Gloria Mooney, age 73, is a “kind, caring” person who “wouldn’t hurt a fly,” said her son Ben DeSilva in a recent GoFundMe campaign.
“Unfortunately, these wonderful attributes can leave someone vulnerable to deplorable people looking to scam individuals in today’s technology-driven world,” DeSilva, who lives in Elmwood Park, said.
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Mooney has been a widow since 2010, but life after the loss of her husband has not proven easy.
In 2021, Mooney was in a serious head-on collision on her way home, which led to her car being totaled and some substantial injuries. Then in 2023, nearly two years to the day, another car ran a red light and t-boned the New Jersey resident.
“This accident was different,” DeSilva said. “My mom was more than just banged up. She was emotionally shaken. She saw several doctors and had even more tests done as her pain was ever lingering. In the weeks after, I noticed a change in her personality and behavior. Something was off.”
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By June of that year, DeSilva’s sinking suspicion gave way to a disturbing discovery.
Mooney told him she had made a friend on Facebook named Henry. Henry allegedly worked on an oil rig, and the two had developed a relationship online.
“My stomach became twisted and I immediately asked to see his profile, which I could tell was fake,” DeSilva said. “I tried to explain it to her but she wasn’t receptive.”
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DeSilva and his brother attempted to explain that the man wasn’t real, and Mooney said she understood and wouldn’t talk to “Henry” again.
But the same situation happened four more times, which DeSilva said put “incredible strain” on their relationship.
In October, DeSilva accidentally opened a letter from his mother’s bank and saw a brutal financial hit had occurred as a result of the man believed to be Henry.
“It says she is late with her payment,” DeSilva said. “This made no sense to me as she always paid bills on time, even early, and had a great credit rating.”
After asking permission to review Mooney’s financials, DeSilva’s heart dropped, he said.
“All I could do was cry in anger and disbelief,” DeSilva said.
“This entity used her kindness, her compassion, all of her qualities against her,” DeSilva said. “They managed to convince my mom they loved her, would take her away, and be happy together. They fed off her loneliness and grief and convinced her to send money online over and over for several months, promising that she would ‘get everything back and more.'”
Mooney sent gift card codes, Bitcoin, wire transfers and was even convinced to withdraw her 401k and personal savings, losing more than $50,000 in the process.
While DeSilva and his brother say they did everything to try to get her money back, speaking to financial institutions, the local police and even the FBI online fraud department, nothing could be done.
“I spoke to our local detective and he was able to trace the transfers and email addresses to Nigeria, which is the number one location for many of these types of scams,” DeSilva said.
Henry’s Facebook photograph turned out to be a celebrity.
“They stole a real person’s identity and pretended to be them,” DeSilva said. “This is all part of their process and it’s sick.”
While Mooney has started to see her doctor more regularly and is working with a therapist while DeSilva now runs her financial accounts, DeSilva said the family has still been unable to recover the more than $50,000 that was stolen from Mooney.
“We’ve decided to swallow our pride as we just can’t help her recover her lost finances alone,” DeSilva said. “Never take a situation for granted and always look out for your older relatives. Never be afraid to question a parent, grandparent, etc. about something that seems off. You just might save their life.”
Romance scams are increasingly common as more people maintain social media accounts today, making them easy targets for strangers to convince them of a fairy tale and steal thousands of dollars in the process.
“Traditional phishing scams start by casting a very wide net, asking for personal information, attempting to capture usernames and passwords, banking information, or other sensitive information through malware and fake sites,” Austin Berglas, the Global Head of Professional Services at BlueVoyant and former FBI Cyber Division Special Agent, told Newsweek.
“Romance scams start very similar. The criminal or group creates a fake online persona and then casts the wide net by sending emails or posting messages to multiple accounts and then waits for responses.”
When potential victims respond, scammers tend to spend a significant amount of time communicating with the victim to build trust and an emotional connection.
“Once a victim is emotionally invested, it is more likely they will overlook certain red flags that might indicate a scam,” Berglas said. “These predators will key on loneliness and a need for companionship, building that trust over time and often isolating their victims from friends and families to avoid being exposed.”
Once the connection is established, scammers exploit the victim’s empathy and start to ask for support to help with a crisis, travel, debt or legal or family issues, he said.
“As with most things on the Internet, we have to look at everything with a healthy dose of skepticism, Berglas said. “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.”
There are some warning signs to look out for, however. Any online relationship that progresses quickly with one party avoiding video chats or meeting in person indicates some red flags under the surface, Berglas said.
Keith Jarvis, a senior security researcher at Secureworks Counter Threat Unit, said these romance scams tend to target emotionally vulnerable populations who do not have regular social or familial relationships.
Due to this, seniors like Mooney are a special target of romance fraudsters.
“These scams can have devastating effects on individuals, both financially and emotionally, leading to significant distress and even long-term psychological trauma,” Jarvis told Newsweek. “It’s crucial for consumers to be vigilant and skeptical of online relationships that progress too quickly or where the other party is overly insistent on financial assistance.”
Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, said the responsibility rests on both the government and the social media platforms themselves to limit the number of romance scammers taking advantage of victims.
“We also need companies that provide the platform for these scams – like email services and social media – to get better about stopping them on the front end,” Beene told Newsweek. “While some services have improved in terms of detecting spam and preventing it from reaching a wider audience, we still have a long way to go in this space to make for a safer environment.”