"I was conned out of £20k by romance fraudster who convinced me he was sick"

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Suzanne Famula met Christopher Harris, 41, a car salesman, on an online dating site in November 2020. Harris, who has 16 previous convictions for more than 25 offences, including nine fraud-related cases, told Suzanne that he had long-term health problems and that he needed cash to "go private" to receive "proper care". He was sentenced to 29 months in prison as well as being given a restraining order against contacting his victim.

Transcript

00:00 Hi, my name's Suzanne Famula.

00:02 I met a guy online and got conduct of just over £20,000.

00:08 We first met in December, off and on for a few months,

00:11 and then got a bit more serious in the May.

00:13 He just asked me money for mortgage, council tax, bills,

00:17 hospital stays, going private.

00:21 And then I realised after a couple of months that it was all a lie.

00:28 I started the process of getting him done for it, which took...

00:33 And it's still taking forever, but he's been in prison and I had my money back.

00:37 It's a hard process and it's a long process, but it is worth doing.

00:41 It gets your money back.

00:43 If it makes the authorities and more people aware of the effect

00:48 that it has on you as a person and what it does to you,

00:52 it also might make them act a bit quicker,

00:55 because I think, what am I now, three years in,

00:58 and I haven't seen a penny from him.

01:02 It needs to be taken a bit more seriously.

01:04 I mean, at one point I was phoning Samaritans trying to get help.

01:08 I mean, they didn't answer, so I phoned victim support,

01:11 and luckily I had a really nice woman on the phone.

01:14 And then I got Catch 22 eventually,

01:17 which have been brilliant throughout this whole thing.

01:19 I can't afford a solicitor or anything.

01:21 If I can do it that way, I know other people can.

01:24 It's also getting the banks to realise that

01:26 just because you meet them in person doesn't mean it's just theft.

01:31 It is fraud, because they're lying about what they need the money for,

01:35 like he did to me.

01:37 They didn't take that into account at all.

01:39 And I had to take them to the financial ombudsman,

01:42 which was 18 months of back and forth, back and forth,

01:46 like them putting words in my mouth and, like, kind of lying.

01:51 It's just...it's been a lot.

01:54 I mean, you always want to believe that if they say they're in hospital unwell,

01:57 that they're telling the truth.

01:59 And I'd just lost someone really close to me.

02:02 My dad was really poorly at the time,

02:04 so I suppose I was in a bit more vulnerable state.

02:06 There were red flags.

02:08 I think I just thought I was helping someone in need

02:12 and trying to be a nice person

02:15 to help someone out who I thought was really poorly

02:19 and wasn't as poorly as they said they were.

02:22 I even showed, like, my friends his profile.

02:24 It was all very normal.

02:26 He said he had a normal job - operations manager at a dealership.

02:29 To me, that's a normal, run-of-the-mill job.

02:32 He didn't have that job.

02:34 I suppose I'd be a bit more judgy next time.

02:39 Like, I might question a bit more.

02:41 I suppose, yeah, I'd just delve deeper into them as a person

02:44 rather than almost taking their word for it.

02:47 If they say, "Oh, I work here,"

02:49 then you ask them where they work in a different way,

02:52 or, like, just kind of fact-checked, I suppose.

02:57 (sighs)

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