Widowed Grandmother Doreen Daniel Scammed Out of £27,000 in WhatsApp Romance Fraud

An 81-year-old woman from Angmering, West Sussex, lost £27,000 after being tricked by a romance scammer who contacted her through WhatsApp. The fraud happened shortly after she lost her husband, Gordon. Her family believes the scammer took advantage of her grief and loneliness.

The woman, Doreen Daniel, was contacted by a man calling himself “Adam.” He claimed to be a financial advisor living in Switzerland and Monaco. Over time, he built trust and a fake friendship with her. He sent kind messages and compliments that made her feel special.

After gaining her trust, Adam convinced Doreen to download a mobile app. This app gave him remote access to her phone and computer. He then transferred large sums of money from her bank accounts. He told her the money was for entering a raffle to win £100,000 in bitcoin.

Doreen’s family did not know about the scam until her bank card was declined during a shopping trip. They checked her bank accounts and saw that huge amounts had been taken. The scammer had hidden all of his WhatsApp messages by archiving them, so the family didn’t find them at first.

Doreen’s daughter, Karen Daniel, said, “To hit on someone who is that vulnerable when they have just lost their life partner, it makes me feel sick.”

The family also discovered that Doreen had been targeted by other scams before. She once bought diet pills from suspicious social media links. In another case, a man entered her home and tried to sell her a water softener for £4,000.

Doreen’s granddaughter, Jasmine El Samad, is a journalism student. She recorded a conversation with her grandmother to understand what had happened. In the recording, Doreen said Adam made her feel important. He told her she didn’t look her age and said she was lucky to have him as a friend. But he never allowed her to see him on a video call.

Jasmine said the scam was a “perfect combination of an attack” – emotional manipulation mixed with fake promises of financial gain.

The family managed to recover £18,000 from the bank. But the scam was never reported to the police. Doreen passed away in November 2023. Her family believes the stress from losing her husband and being scammed contributed to her health decline. She had suffered two mini strokes before her death.

According to Home Office data, fraud now makes up 40% of all recorded crime in England and Wales. Action Fraud reports that in 2024, over £92 million was lost to romance scams. From 2020 to 2024, cases of such scams have gone up by 27%.