Woman loses $8,000 to online dating scammer

BOARDMAN — A township woman reported a case of telecommunications fraud to police in which she purportedly lost several thousand dollars.

According to a report filed Wednesday, the alleged victim told police she met a man on an online dating website at the end of last year. She said the two talked regularly, and the man sometimes sent her money.

Then, earlier this month, the man requested that she transfer him money while he was "in Peru for business ... to assist him in paying employees and then to help him pay for himself to get home," according to the report.

The woman told police she took out cash advances on a credit card, then used a wire service to transfer money. The man told her he would make payments to her credit card, but the credit card company informed the woman the payments were not going through due to insufficient funds in the account they were coming from.

In all, on several different occasions, the woman reported that she wired approximately $8,000.