Online Dating Disaster Love Cost Me $140,000

The hapless romantic lost her heart and her family home.

- Cloe Willetts

Jordan Alexander had found the perfect love match. He was chatty and intelligent, a successful businessman with wholesome values, dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Like her, James was a consultant who worked internationally and his tragic past as a widowed dad pulled on the mother-oftwo’s heartstrings.

Her dream man, who she met online and clicked with over daily conversations, sent flowers from London and said he was looking for a life partner. In Jordan’s eyes, it was fate.

“He ticked all the boxes of what I thought would be fantastic,” says the Wellingtonbased author of dating-safety book I Love You, Send Money. “I never thought for a nanosecond it wasn’t legit.”

But half a year after introducing herself online, Canadian-born Jordan was alone in Hawaii, waiting to meet the man who never showed and had left her $140,000 in debt.

Jordan, 51, was the victim of an intricate internet-dating scam that robbed her of her money and confidence. She’s now using her traumatic experience to prevent other Kiwis from falling prey.

Six years ago, friends convinced the busy mum to sign up to a dating websiteafter her marriage to the father of her girls Sage, 18, and Ella, 16, had ended.

“I loved the concept that no-one knew what you looked like and could fall in love with you based on a true connection,” explains Jordan.