They matched on a dating app. He said he liked cryptocurrency … And scammed her out of 400,000 dollars.
In his latest documentary, Brut filmmaker Jessey Dearing meets a young woman who fell for a romance con, and is fighting back …
In his latest documentary, Brut filmmaker Jessey Dearing meets a young woman who fell for a romance con, and is fighting back …
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00:00I decided to get on Hinge dating app.
00:11That's when I actually met this guy named Hal, which is where it all started.
00:24These people will take as much from you, you know, till you're in debt.
00:30And really what they're doing is just scamming you.
00:50My money, my dad and I's money was gone in seconds.
01:0118 to 29-year-olds are increasingly being targeted by romance scammers.
01:06Last year, $139 million were stolen through these scams and cryptocurrency alone.
01:12For Brut, I'm taking you to Tennessee to meet up with 24-year-old Nikki Hutchinson,
01:17who lost nearly $400,000 to a crypto scammer she met on Hinge.
01:21Now, she's living in an RV with her dad.
01:24So this is kind of our home abode where my dad and I live.
01:33This is kind of where I do all my work when I'm a social media producer or just straight chilling.
01:38This is my little office. This is our little kitchen.
01:41My dad's room, the master, my closet.
01:44We don't need to go in there. It's a little messy.
01:47So yeah, that's our little home on wheels.
01:52In October of 2021, I visited a friend out in Southern California.
01:58I decided to get on Hinge dating app.
02:0124 years old, never been on a date, never kissed a guy.
02:05Dating was never really in my priorities.
02:09But as you get older, obviously all your friends have been on dates or have boyfriends or girlfriends.
02:14And it's like, oh, I kind of want to know like what that would be like.
02:18I started, you know, swiping right to these people.
02:21And that's when I actually met this guy named Hal.
02:25I thought he had like a clean appearance.
02:28Not super bulky, not athletic, not like a frat boy of any sort.
02:32Soft eyes, feminine looking almost.
02:36I've always gravitated towards those types of people because they feel easier to connect with.
02:42And he was also Asian. That's a big thing for me.
02:49OK, well, I will use half of it in here and then I'll save the other half for if I want to make like pho.
03:04I think there was only like three kids in my high school that was Asian.
03:10And so just like that, it just didn't feel right.
03:16I always felt like a little bit of an outcast because I was never white, but I wasn't Asian enough.
03:22I'm still trying to figure out where I fit in, really.
03:26I do think anybody who's been adopted or anyone feeling outcasted in a sense,
03:33like not looking the same like everyone else, you do want to have that sense of community and bond.
03:46The first message I think on Hinge was like, oh my gosh, you're so beautiful.
03:52I just kind of pushed that aside because that makes me very uncomfortable, to be honest.
04:07Even from the get go, I was like, there seemed to be a language barrier.
04:12He texted really good English, but it felt very formal, like what you are supposed to be taught when you're actually learning English.
04:19So I thought, oh, OK, well, I don't think a connection could ever be super deep just because of a language barrier.
04:26So I was like, OK, well, that's fine. Like I voiced that maybe we should just be friends.
04:31And he was super OK with that.
04:42So that was kind of like my first experience of like a guy friend and a guy friend that wasn't super pushy
04:50and kind of respected my boundaries of like, hey, let's just be friends and whatnot.
05:03And trying to get to know anyone, you're in a sense have to be a bit vulnerable
05:09in order for them to kind of get to know you and who you are.
05:12So that's kind of what we did. I started asking him questions about his family and told him I was adopted.
05:19I asked about hobbies and he rattled off a ton of hobbies.
05:23And then at the end, it said cryptocurrency.
05:31When I was a lot younger, my mom worked as a cashier.
05:35And she was like, oh, you're a cashier?
05:37And I was like, yeah, I'm a cashier.
05:39And she was like, oh, you're a cashier?
05:41And I was like, yeah, I'm a cashier.
05:43And she was like, oh, you're a cashier?
05:45When I was a lot younger, my mom worked and she made really good money,
05:50you know, middle class, upper middle class.
05:52And then when she lost her job, we struggled.
05:55I remember being on food stamps.
05:58They divorced. There was a lot of stuff going on.
06:01And I just felt very unstable.
06:03After losing that, I think she lost a bit of her.
06:06And so she took that out through drinking.
06:11I grew up with that from, you know, middle school all the way up into college.
06:17And it was just really sad to see my mother just,
06:22the mother that I loved kind of disappear.
06:28This is my childhood home.
06:30When my mother passed away, it kind of came to me.
06:32And my dad and I split the profits.
06:42The way he texted about teaching me and showing me was like FaceTime,
06:58you know, showing me what to do, giving me tips.
07:01I go back to him and he's like, are you ready to learn?
07:04And I'm like, yeah, I'm definitely ready to learn.
07:07How are we going to do it? Are we going to do Zoom?
07:10Are we going to do FaceTime? And he was very confused.
07:13He was like, FaceTime, Zoom, I can just teach you over WhatsApp.
07:18And I was like, okay, that wasn't what I expected.
07:21So I was like, well, why don't we just do a quick FaceTime?
07:26You're good?
07:30You are shy.
07:32You like me?
07:35Well, I'm really excited to learn crypto.
07:40Oh, turn me off.
07:42My friend recorded like the whole him being on FaceTime,
07:48but she didn't like get any of his, I guess, like face or anything.
07:52I just remember freaking out inside because what I saw was just an eyeball.
07:57And I was just like, why is there a freaking eyeball?
08:01Why is there a freaking eyeball looking at me and doing this?
08:06Like it was looking all around and it was just like.
08:21Oh, my gosh, this guy is really shy, like super nervous.
08:32I want to always take care of my family.
08:35I take care of my 90 or four-year-old grandmother.
08:38I got you some flowers.
08:40You want me to hold them?
08:41Yeah.
08:42Okay.
08:43I was paying for her finances as well as my dad helping to chip in.
08:47But also my dad, I know he's 66 years old.
08:50He has a fixed income.
08:52So I wanted to make sure he could live the dream life I thought I could provide for him.
08:58All right.
08:59I love you.
09:00I love you, too.
09:01All right.
09:02All right.
09:03I'll see you next week, okay?
09:04Okay.
09:05I love you.
09:06I love you, too.
09:07All right.
09:08Have a good day.
09:09Bye.
09:10I shared that, like, I have these fears and how it always made me feel like it's okay,
09:15you know, you're going to figure it out.
09:17But also, like, with investing, you're going to, you know,
09:21have all this money to not even worry about those mundane types of things.
09:26And you can live the life and your dream life that you want
09:30because you'll have the money to take care of your grandmother and your dad.
09:35I think he started to know that that's the reason why I would do this.
09:45We would do the buying and selling for maybe five minutes at the most.
09:50And it just felt like, okay, tell me when to buy and sell.
09:53It was exciting.
10:23It felt, it did feel like an adrenaline.
10:35It felt like, wow, this is how people do it in, like, crypto.
10:39They buy and sell at a certain time and, like, this is the feeling.
10:42But I also felt like, I felt very confused.
10:46He kept wanting me to get these bonuses and VIPs.
10:50And so he wanted me to get to, like, I think 50K at that point.
11:16You're seeing profits go up.
11:20The fact that I am making profits and I'm seeing results from it,
11:24that's where I started to trust PAO a bit more.
11:27It first started out 2,000, 3,000, 5,000, 10,000,
11:32got to 15,000, and then 20,000, 25,000, 50,000,
11:38and then I think 75 was the highest I ever put in.
11:4275 was the highest I ever put in on a wire transfer.
11:54He said, you could be a millionaire at the end of the year.
12:04There was still so many unclear answers.
12:07It was really hard to digest.
12:10And I just remember crying.
12:12I was in hysteric and I just said, I think, I think I lost all this money.
12:17I think we've been in a scam.