The victims of a romance scammer who defrauded women he met on Tinder out of over $100,000 have spoken out about being targeted.
Peter Gray, 35, from Yorkshire, UK, found his victims on Tinder and won their trust. He is sentenced to 56 months in prison.
Romance scams have boomed since the onset of the pandemic, with Americans losing over $1.3 billion to the practice in 2022, up 164% from 2019. Some 70,000 people in the US reported being a victim of a romance scam in 2022, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Gray used information from driving licenses to scam Tinder dates
"It was shocking," a sister of one of Gray's victims told BBC News. "You see these things happening on TV. You never believe it's going to happen to you, but believe me, it can."
Gray engaged in this behavior for several years. In 2018, he matched with a woman BBC News identified as Jessica. On their third date, Jessica went to Gray's apartment and used the bathroom.
She told BBC News: "I left my bag on his dining table, he went in my bag and took pictures of my driving license and both my bank cards,"
A few weeks later, Jessica found out Gray had taken out £1,000 ($1,250) from her bank account and a £9,000 loan (about $11,000).
Something similar happened to a woman identified only as Hannah, who had only been seeing Gray for a week when she realized a loan for £20,000 (about $25,000) had been taken out in her name.
