An Australian woman who lost more than $250,000 in a sophisticated scam that used David Koch’s face to lure victims has confronted the man who allegedly orchestrated the fraud, calling him a “scumbag.”
Alison Smyth, from Adelaide, admitted she considered ending her life after brazen scammers took advantage of her desire to make more money so she could move her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, into a nursing home.
He came across a link on social media that used former Sunrise host David ‘Kochie’ Koch’s face to promote a cryptocurrency investment platform.
Ms Smyth claimed she was groomed and encouraged into investments, and only realized it was a scam after her life savings were taken from her.
She is among more than 600,000 Australians who have lost a combined total of $2.7 billion in the last year.
“I was totally mortified and thought about killing myself,” she told Channel Seven’s Spotlight programme.
Alison Smyth (pictured), from Adelaide, considered ending her life after alleged scammers took advantage of her desire to earn more money so she could move her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, into a nursing home.
Port Adelaide’s die-hard AFL fan got a small form of justice after the program tracked down the man accused of being in charge of the alleged fraud in a dirty office block in Cebu, Philippines.
“You are a fellow scumbag, absolute scumbag,” an angry Mrs Smyth told the man via Facetime, who remained silent and refused to make eye contact.
‘You are scum of the earth. You deserve to rot, friend.
Journalist Liam Bartlett asked the alleged scammer if he would apologise.
You really are pathetic mate, honestly!’ she told the man.
“A simple forgiveness and you can’t even make it.”
Ms Smyth wanted the alleged fraudsters who allegedly defrauded her behind bars.
“I want to see people arrested, see them tied up and on the ground,” he said.
‘I want to see them treated like the scum they are, lying in the ground, face down.
“And I would like my money back.”
However, the program revealed that the alleged criminal mastermind fled the country while out on bail.
Alison Smyth had the opportunity to confront the man accused of being behind the alleged scam in which she lost $250,000.
Smyth revealed that she was initially misled by the use of David ‘Kochie’ Koch’s face in a social media advertisement.
“There was a photo of David Koch with ‘look what Kochie is doing with his Bitcoin’,” Ms Smyth told the programme.
“I thought, ‘Oh, I wonder what he’s doing.'” He’s our president of the AFL football team that I follow and that’s when it all started.
Ms Smyth claimed she was called by a man called ‘Ben’ with an English accent who slowly built a relationship with her over weeks and months.
‘He said ‘You can invest money in this plan and we will teach you how to trade currencies. We will help you make money,’ said Mrs Smyth.
Koch described the scams as “devastating” and that he could not prevent his image from being used.
“People who trust me and what I say and look at me and say ‘wow, I take some comfort in what this guy says,’ then they get scammed by some foreign scammer,” the business journalist said. .
He called on technology companies like Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to do more to tackle scams on their platforms.
The program also heard from an elderly woman named Johanna who had been fleeced of $800,000, her life savings.
Johanna Robinson, a devout Christian living on the Gold Coast, saw an ad on YouTube for an investment platform.
The program also heard from an elderly woman called Johanna Robinson (pictured) who had been robbed of $800,000, her life savings.
She had recently sold her house and wanted to make more money so she could buy a new house closer to her daughter.
At first, Ms. Robinson would see good returns deposited into her account, but it was all a ruse to build her trust.
“The way he spoke to me was very encouraging,” she said.
“Then he started asking me about my beliefs and I shared and talked a lot about God… and he was very interested in what my views were.”
The scammer posed as a Christian to further gain their trust.
Mrs Robinson now survives solely on her pension.
Cybercrime investigator Ken Gamble told the program that online fraudsters were “selling the dream” to Australians that they could make money from their computer.
“There is real business information that is put into the website to make it look realistic, but it is fictitious,” he said.
‘This is all false. It’s a way to steal money.
But Johanna not only lost all her money, she also lost her identity because the scammers also stole all her personal data.
“I’m going to have to change my name, change my last name, change my identity,” he said.
Former Sunrise host David Koch called on social media companies to do more about online scams
Koch said anyone could be a victim of one of his scammers.
“People who haven’t been scammed say, ‘Oh, you’d have to be a fool to fall for one of those,'” Koch said.
But you don’t have to be a fool to fall in love with them. You can be a normal and intelligent person.
Koch met Mrs Smyth, whom he described as “the human face of these scams: the average Australian whose life is destroyed by these mongrels from overseas”.
He has repaid Ms Smyth’s Port Adelaide club membership for life.
