16 April 2023 , 01:37
370
0
A woman has made it her mission to expose online romantic fraudsters and her exploits have proved a huge hit.
Becky Holmes has amassed over 100,000 followers on Twitter, who have been engrossed by her attempts to weed out these fraudulent lotharios, something she started pursuing during lockdown in 2020 to tackle boredom and loneliness, reports Coventry Live.
Her antics have gone down a storm, including offering to meet a ‘pilot’ in Stockholm, who suddenly got cold feet when she offered to fly to the Swedish capital to meet him.
Becky, Stratford-Upon-Avon, shares the messages she gets from the scammers to her account @deathtospinach and the results have been comical.
One of the comical conversations Becky has had with a romantic fraud (Becky Holmes)Fans follow her encounters with the scammers, who use fake profiles in a practice known as catfishing.
EastEnders' Jake Wood's snap of son has fans pointing out the pair's likeness
She pretends to give into the love frauds and strings them along to show users how easily people can be fooled.
Speaking to the BBC, she said: “I told one of them that I had more aubergines than Judi Dench and I told somebody else that I came from Neptune.
“You know, all of these things that you think they would pick up on.”
Becky has also written a book titled ‘Keanu Reeves Is Not In Love With You’, which includes testimonies from people who have been tricked into sending money, including a story about a lady who lost £120,000 and had to remortgage her house to pay it back.
A report from West Midlands Police said the region lost £2.8m to romance fraud, with 347 people reported to be victims in 2021, but Becky says these statistics have been underreported.
“The main reason is, because people are ashamed, they feel stupid, they feel embarrassed,” she said.
“It’s unacceptable that we have made people that way.”