Widow thought she was dating David Attenborough online – she lost £12k | UK | News
Scammer creates fake Facebook profile to start talking to victim (Image: Getty)
A 74-year-old widow was defrauded of half her life savings after embarking on what she believed was an online relationship with Sir David Attenborough. Diane, whose name has been changed to remain anonymous, gave 22,000 Canadian dollars (£12,000) to a fraudster posing as the 99-year-old broadcaster after receiving a friend request on Facebook. After starting communication in October 2024, the cybercriminal moved his conversation to the Telegram messaging app, and just a few weeks after the scam, they were declaring their love for each other.
Diane, who lives in Canada, continued messaging the person she believed to be Sir David for months, staying up late to talk to him UK time. The fraudster told the 74-year-old man his ex-wife had stolen hundreds of thousands of pounds from him and he needed the money to cover legal fees and fund life-saving kidney treatment.
More than half of romance scams start on social media (Image: Getty)
He initially deposited CA$4,000 (£2,200) into a cryptocurrency account at his request, then made further payments of several hundred to several thousand dollars; It is almost impossible to track or recover them all.
By March 2025, he had sent away almost half his life savings and had only C$6,000 (£3,300) left in the account he could access.
In return, the conman promised Diane marriage if she sold her flat and moved to London, and encouraged her to get a passport – but even then he had his doubts.
The 74-year-old told Independent: “All this time there was a voice inside saying, ‘Diane, stop it. He’s scamming you.’ But I was in love with him.”
When he asked for proof of his identity, he received an AI-generated video, complete with the natural historian’s voice and image.
Diane finally cut off contact with the scammer when she encountered her son Jim, who found out what she was doing and convinced her to stop.
10 days later, the scammer, still pretending to be Sir David, sent the following email: “You never deserved me. You pretended to love me when you never did. You are such a fool for causing me this pain in my heart.”
Although Diane acknowledged the reality of the scam, she backed out about six weeks later, when she emptied the remainder of her savings and sent it to the cybercriminal.
She has since sought medical attention and opened a joint bank account with her son, allowing him to keep track of her transactions.
Romance scams have become increasingly common in recent years; Research from the UK Exchequer suggests this often involves more payments than other types of fraud.
An estimated £20.5 million was lost to romance scams in the first half of 2025, a figure that has almost doubled since 2020.
Analysis of TSB data by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau found that 58% of all romance fraud cases started on social media and 29% involved celebrity impersonations.
