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A woman lost her life savings to a scam artist claiming to be an astronaut who was stranded in space and needed money to buy oxygen. He claimed that his spaceship was being attacked after making contact with the woman on social media.
The victim, an 80-year-old woman who lives alone in Japan’s northern Hokkaido island, first met the “astronaut” on social media in July. Local police described the case as a romance scam.
After developing an online relationship with the woman, claiming he was “in a spaceship right now,” he told her that he was “under attack and in need of oxygen.” The woman, fearing for his life, sent him around one million yen (around $6,800).
Police warned that if you meet someone online you should always be suspicious if they ask for money. Scam centers and fraud factories are an actual industry in places like southeast Asia.
Scammers work in many different ways
Her case is the latest in a long line of scams being perpetrated on the most vulnerable people, especially the elderly and those looking for love.
Last month, former NFL defensive back Buster Skrine was arrested on 18 charges connected to an “extensive financial fraud scheme” involving multiple women he targeted on online dating sites.
In 2024, a Florida man was arrested for allegedly impersonating tech billionaire Elon Musk and scamming an elderly woman out of approximately $600,000. That same month, a group of scammers managed to steal one million dollars from an elderly man who believed he had become friends with WWE star Alexa Bliss.
Some stats about scams
According to a 2024 FBI report, “Scams targeting individuals aged 60 and older caused over $3.4 billion in losses in 2023.” Victims were scammed out of an average of $33,915.
The most widely reported types of scams were related to tech support, personal data breaches, confidence and romance scams, non-payment or non-delivery scams, and investment scams. Investment scams were responsible for more than $1.2 billion in losses – the most of any type of scam. Also, more than 12,000 victims aged 60 and over said cryptocurrency was “a medium or tool used to facilitate” the scam or fraud that targeted them.