I've matched with four men on dating apps - they were all scammers

'I've matched with four men on dating apps - they were all scammers' 6 hours ago Share Save Add as preferred on Google Jonny Humphries North West Julie Osgood Julie Osgood decided to try modern dating for the first time a few years after losing her partner of 38 years to Covid A few years after losing her partner of nearly 40 years to Covid, Julie Osgood decided she wanted to give the modern dating world a try. But the experience left the 60-year-old, from Middleton, resigned to "staying single" - because the first four men she matched with all turned out to be scammers. Julie, who had been with her partner Tony Donohue from the age of 17 until his death in November 2020, described signing up to a dating app as "a really big step". While she worked out each fraudster's true intentions before parting with any cash, she said: "I'll never, ever go on a dating website again. I just don't know where you're meant to meet genuine people." 'Similar playbook' Julie said she wanted to speak up to help prevent other people falling victim to similar scams - and to put pressure on dating sites to take action. According to figures obtained by the BBC last year, the amount of money lost to romance fraud cases reported to Action Fraud went above £92m in 2024, up from £82m the year before. The first three times Julie was targeted on the same dating app, she said each scammer followed a similar playbook. Julie Osgood Messages of financial woe from the man Julie believed to be scamming her Pictures of the men Julie had matched with, shared with the BBC, showed tell-tale signs that they have been generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) - such as jumbled lettering on text in the background. "They all start off with similar stories," she said. "They've all been widowed except for this one who said he was divorced, but they all seemed to have teenage daughters who tend to live with their mother. "It starts off normal, probably for like a week or two, but then they've either got a go away on a business trip, while they were out on a business trip he lost his briefcase and he needed help with something. "It takes them a few weeks to actually ask for anything." After her initial disappointing foray into online dating Julie gave up. However after a house move in December last year and the last of her children leaving home, she decided to try one more time. "I am going be alone and I don't want to be alone forever," she said. "I thought the only way is really the dating website so I'll give it one more go, and I joined a different one for like a month to see how it went." 'Here we go again' This time Julie signed up to a dating app aimed at over-50s, called Ourtime. Soon, she matched with a man using the name Franck. In good shape and with fair hair, Franck told Julie he was an architect who had come to the UK from his native France three years earlier. Again, Franck claimed to be divorced and have a teenage daughter, but seemed genuine and after chatting on WhatsApp for