'I fell for a man on a dating app and was scammed, twice, out of £18,000'

Gabriella says she knew something was wrong and 'should have trusted her gut'

A single mother scammed out of £18,000 after being “lured” into “trading” by a dating app user and signing up for online work, is urging others to “listen to your gut feeling”. Earlier this year Gabriella Kranyik, 46, a personal fashion assistant who lives in north-west London with her daughter Stella, 18, started looking for ways to make extra money as she was “struggling financially”.

She said she met someone called Gabriel on the dating app happn – although she now believes this was a “fake name” – and within two weeks of speaking to him she was “lured” into trading, where she believed her money would be invested. After making payments of £600 and £1,500, Gabriella said she was told her investments had generated 52,406.60 US dollars (£39,078.35) in profit, but after being told she needed to pay taxes and other fees to retrieve the funds, otherwise her credit score could be affected, she realised it was a scam.

Having lost about £10,000, she then signed up for online work to recover the money, which involved completing tasks, making payments, and withdrawing the profits, but as time went on, she discovered this was just another scam. She said she has borrowed about £11,000 from friends and family for both scams, which was “embarrassing” and “humiliating”, and she has since launched a fundraising page to help her pay her rent and bills and repay the money she owes.

Gabriella contacted Action Fraud, explaining each scam in detail, but she said “nothing happened” – Action Fraud confirmed that it received two reports, but it said they have not been passed to police for investigation. Speaking about the impact of the scams, which left her “fragile” and “shaking”, she told PA Real Life: “Financially the scams completely ruined me. Literally, on my account it was showing zero.

“The day after the second scam I couldn’t even string a sentence together. I was extremely shocked and extremely fragile. I stupidly invested my salary, so I wasn’t able to pay my rent, my bills. I still owe money to my landlord.”

Being a single mother in London, with a net monthly salary of about £2,500, with rent of £1,350 and approximate bills of £600, Gabriella said she was “living on the edge” at the end of every month. She had met someone called Gabriel on the dating app happn, which says it offers the opportunity to “connect with genuine locals”, and after conversing, he suggested she try “trading”, saying she would only have to invest “small amounts”.

With Gabriella always worrying about “when the next payment is coming”, feeling desperate, she decided to go ahead – and with Gabriel saying they should meet in person soon in London, she was hopeful. “It sounds silly, I know, but it was a dating app where I was influenced or lured into trading,” she said.

“I still cannot understand how I could say yes to the whole thing, but within two weeks I just said yes.”

They then started communicating on WhatsApp and, with clear instructions and Gabriel “phrasing everything nicely”, Gabriella said she was told that she would “profit a huge amount of money” by making payments via Revolut and Trust Wallet. After paying £600, followed by £1,500, she was told her investments had generated a profit of 52,406.60 US dollars, which she said seemed “unreal”.

“I thought, what? From £1,500, I’ve made 52,000 dollars? I didn’t want to believe it,” she said. She explained that Gabriel had reassured her and said “let’s try to get your funds”, but Gabriella was left “waiting, waiting, waiting”, so she was directed to a customer services chat forum on the website: www.antmonk.com.

She then received a response from a supposed advisor on the chat forum on June 1 2024, seen by PA Real Life, which said she needed to pay a tax amount of 7,860.9 US dollars by June 4 to retrieve the funds. A message reads: “If you fail to pay taxes in a timely manner, it will affect your credit score and result in a daily late fee of 1% of the total account amount, as well as legal responsibility for your tax evasion behavior [sic].”

With the pressure to pay the fee within three days, Gabriella feared she was going to be placed “on a blacklist” and she started “panicking”. She said: “I was feeling trapped now, I just wanted to get my money back, but there was no way back.

“Gabriel was pushing me, trying to get me to apply for a loan, saying, ‘I will try to help you because we are together in this situation’. “So in the end, that’s when I started borrowing money from my friends and family.”

Gabriella said she paid the tax amount and was told her funds would be ready after 12 hours, but she then received a message which said “the fund transfer has failed”. After being told she then needed to pay a withdrawal fee of about 3,000 US dollars (£2,237), which she paid, followed by another payment request, she realised it was a scam – and “slowly Gabriel disappeared”.

She said she lost about £10,000 in total from the first scam and felt “ashamed”. “It was shocking, and I felt a huge amount of guilt,” she said.

“I did not want to believe that it happened to me, and I became very anxious, worrying about how I’m going to repay the money I borrowed from friends and family.” After looking for “cash in hand” jobs to recover the money she lost, she signed up for online work via a website called supercomplexcreative.shop which, when searched for by PA Real Life, no longer exists.

Via the website and with direction from a “so-called agent” on WhatsApp, she said she was asked to complete 38 tasks and, in return for payments on Remitly, she would be able to withdraw her profits at the end of each day. After paying £50 and completing the tasks, she said she was able to withdraw £80, making her believe the scheme was legitimate – but this was the “bait”.

Soon after this, Gabriella said the payment amounts kept increasing, up to £1,700, and she was told that if she did not complete the tasks after the payments, she would “lose (her) money”. However, as time went on, she said she could no longer withdraw her profits – and again, she realised she had been scammed, losing more than £7,000 the second time. I was, again, extremely guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, anxious – I felt everything,” she said.

“I clearly remember that day and I’ll probably never ever forget it.”

In “desperation”, Gabriella said she set up a GoFundMe page to help her pay her rent and bills and repay her friends and family. She said it would mean “the world” to her to reach the £18,000 fundraising target, as she would be able to rebuild her life and pay off her debts.

Gabriella said it has been “a learning experience” but she wants to share her story so that it does not happen to anyone else. She said: “Now I know there are red flags I should have acted upon.

“First of all, I had the bad feeling, the gut feeling from the first moment when I made the payment – and that’s actually my message to everyone, you need to listen to your gut feeling. I should have listened to myself and just left things at the very beginning.”

Karima Ben Abdelmalek, chief executive and president of happn, said in a statement: “Our users’ safety is our top priority. “We want singles to be safe and enjoy their experience on the app in a trustful environment. To do so, happn leverages many ways to ensure a secure dating experience.

“Our full-time moderation team works 24/7 to deal with reports, and we have developed our own in-house algorithms to flag potential scam profiles.”

The statement added that it exposes users of the app to safety awareness campaigns, and advised people to exercise caution when speaking to or meeting a stranger. Claire Webb, acting director of Action Fraud, said: “Action Fraud can confirm that it received two reports, NFRC240606724531 on 16 June 2024 and another NFRC240706750587 on 1 July 2024.

“There were assessed by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) at the City of London Police but have not been passed to a police force for investigation. It will continue to be reviewed against new information received from Action Fraud reports.”

To find out more or to donate to Gabriella’s fundraising page, visit: gofundme.com/f/please-help-to-recover-from-severs-scams.