The BBCA woman who fell victim to a massive online romance fraud has told BBC Scotland she is completely convinced by the deepfake videos used to swindle her out of £17,000.
Nikki McLeod, 77, sent gift cards and bank and PayPal transfers in the belief she was sending money to a real woman she was in an online relationship with.
She said she was initially skeptical but was reassured by the man’s video messages, which she now knows were fake.
She wants to warn others about the increasing use of AI technology by scammers.
Nicky was contacted during BBC Radio Scotland’s morning programme. BBC’s Skim Safe Week last month.
The retired lecturer from Edinburgh said: “I’m not a stupid person but she managed to convince me that she was a real person and we were going to spend our lives together.”
The 77-year-old woman said she was lonely after losing her parents during the lockdown and ending a long-term relationship. She started talking to people online and met a person she knew as Alla Morgan in a chat group.
She was told the man was working on an oil rig in the North Sea and was asked to buy Steam gift cards so they could keep talking. These cards are commonly used to purchase video games. Nicky tells the person he needs them to allow him to get an internet connection on the rig so they can keep talking.
Nicky said she was skeptical, but was persuaded to buy several hundred pounds worth of cards.
He repeatedly asked Ella Morgan for a live video call that was either refused, or didn’t work. That’s when he started receiving recorded video messages.
“I was beginning to wonder, are you a real person?” Nikki said.
“Then he sent me a video to say ‘Hi Nicky, I’m not a scammer, I’m on my oil rig’, and I was totally convinced.
“A few weeks later he sent me another video, also of an oil rig with bad weather in the background. This was before he started asking me for all this money.”
The images and video sent to Nikki were created using AI technology.
There is no way of knowing where the image of this lady ‘ala Morgan’ came from.
It could have been created using the face of a real person who had no connection to the fraudsters and no idea that their identity had been used.
Nicky said the documents, photos and videos he was sent were enough to convince him to part with his cash.
“She (Ala Morgan) said she was going to see me and asked if I could pay for her holiday from an oil rig to come to Scotland,” Nicky said.
Nicky is then sent details of a company that Allah is said to work for and is contacted by someone in their HR department who asks for money to pay for the helicopter.
“She said she’d pay me back, so I gave her $2,500,” Nikki said.
The scam eventually came to light when Nicky was trying to make another payment into a bank account, supposedly belonging to Alla Morgan, and her own bank notified her that she was the victim of fraud.
Police Scotland have confirmed they are investigating the matter.
How to Spot a Deepfake Video Scam
BBC Scotland asked Dr Lynsey Shepherd, an expert in cybersecurity and human-computer interaction at Aberdeen University, to take a look at the video messages Nicky sent.
He said: “At first glance it looks legitimate, if you don’t know what to look for, but if you look at the eyes – the eye movements are not quite right.
“There are a lot of apps out there, even something as simple as a face changer app or filters, that can do that. You can sometimes see when people are talking, when you look around the jaw. are, then the filter type slips a little.
“It’s relatively straightforward to do.”
Online fraudsters often claim to be in a location where a face-to-face meeting or live video call is not possible, Dr Shepherd said.
“Oil rigs is one of the common ones — in the military on base, a doctor overseas — and then usually they build that relationship and then say, ‘There’s an emergency, I need something to travel. Need money’.”
Nikki said she sent around £17,000 to the scammers in total.
His bank and PayPal have been able to recover around £7,000 of the money, but he was persuaded by scammers to send some of the money as a personal payment – through a friends and family event on PayPal. It has not been recovered.
PayPal said they do not cover personal payments under PayPal Buyer Protection.
In a statement, a spokesperson added: “We are very sorry to hear that this has happened to Ms McLeod. Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud, including romance scams, is a threat that exists across the industry. has increased.”
He urged PayPal users to be wary of “unusual payment requests” and added that “always question unsolicited methods in case of a scam.”
On its website, Steam warns that scammers are forcing victims to buy Steam Wallet gift cards. People should never give a Steam Wallet gift card to someone they don’t know,” the company said.
Police Scotland said investigations were ongoing after the fraud was reported in October and inquiries are ongoing.
A spokesman added: “We would ask people to be vigilant and encourage anyone who believes they have been the victim of a fraud or scam to contact the police on 101.”
Nicky told us the fraudsters are constantly contacting her, most recently sending her a newspaper article, claiming Ala Morgan is now in a Turkish prison and needs more money.
She wants others to learn from her experience.
He said, “These fraudsters have no empathy at all. This is their job and they are very good at it.”
“The documents looked real, the videos looked real, the bank looked real.
“With the introduction of artificial intelligence, everything can be faked.”