A woman from the Laurentians spends two to three hours every day sending profiles of scammers to Meta, Facebook's parent company, to protect older women who are being scammed out of thousands of dollars.
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“It is a disaster! There are so many that it doesn't make sense. I have reached 4000 deleted accounts. All accounts verified and sent to Meta. I have two other women who work with me. I work on it every day,” says Candide, who prefers to keep her last name anonymous.
Provided by Candide
“It really makes me angry, I think it's disgusting that older women are being ripped off like that,” she said.
After she believed her friend was cheated out of almost $100,000, Candide, who lives in Saint-Sauveur, decided to make the matter personal.
“She lost her entire pension fund. He created a love story for her that would never end, and he said he didn't have the money to join her, so she paid for the plane tickets. Then he had an “accident” on the way to the airport and his car was totaled. After that, he went to the hospital, so she paid all the costs… In total it was $100,000,” says the 70-year-old.
Eight to ten women per day
According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center (CAFC), romance fraud is the second type of fraud to cause the greatest financial losses to Canadians, after investment fraud.
Eight to ten women write to Candide every day to tell him that they were caught or didn't know the accounts were fake.
“The fraudsters claim to live in France, but in reality they come from Ivory Coast, Benin and Ghana. Several have become millionaires in Ivory Coast,” she emphasizes.
These “grazers,” as Candide calls them, court older women who need affection. Women who don't protect their Facebook accounts and accept every friend request instead of reserving that privilege to friends or family members.
“Even men get caught! Scammers steal photos and Facebook posts and pose as women. I also have photo comparison software. I'm researching this. These are always photos stolen from publications by people who do not protect their Facebook accounts,” explains Candide.
Meta cleans up
When Candide discovers a fake account, she sends it to Meta. You will lead the investigation. If Meta rarely responds, the accounts will still systematically disappear.
However, for Facebook, the task is not so easy as the messages from these accounts generally remain civil and do not violate their standards. For this reason, Candide urges people to be vigilant.
“If you get caught, you don’t even do the first check, which is the number of friends and publications. I say protect your accounts and then only accept people from your family or close friends.”
In 2021 (most recent data available):
- 1928 Complaints about romance scams in Canada
- 18.5 Millions of dollars stolen
- Less than 5% of all fraud victims report their experiences to the police
Source: Canadian Anti-Fraud Center (CAFC) and Fédération de l'Âge d'Or du Québec (FADOQ)
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