A homeless man has been accused of tricking 13 women out of more than $150,000 after he posed as a millionaire on an internet dating service.Using a laptop computer to access the website MillionaireMatch.com, Paul Kruger, 50, convinced eight women that he was a Grammy-nominated music mogul who had worked with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones, amongst others.
Although such websites generally exist to introduce rich men to less affluent women, Krueger allegedly persuaded them that he was the one in need of money, in this case for a compact disc and DVD manufacturing company for which he looking for investors. The 13 sent him a total of $102,000.
He got in touch with the other five alleged victims through one of the women he met on the website. One of the victims was even shown false share reports of the bogus operation, a court in Souderton, Pennsylvania, heard.
“He did have a good story,” said one victim, a sales manager in Costa Mesa, Calif, who gave him $10,000. Krueger has been charged with theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, and deceptive or fraudulent business practices. He has yet to plead.
The website describes itself as the “number one dating site for successful singles and admirers”. It classifies a millionaire as anyone earning over $150,000 a year, but it does not check on members’ finances.
Steve Kasper, the marketing vice president of Successfulmatch.com, the parent company of MillionaireMatch.com, said it was up to users to police it themselves. “We do tell all of our members on all of our sites that you have to take precautions when you’re on the internet and looking at people that you’re going to meet,” he said.
Kreuger, who had the money sent to Souderton because his ex-wife lives in the town, used it to fuel his gambling addiction, said prosecutors. The Californian woman said she was willing to be a witness but that the experience had not put her off online dating.
“You have to be careful where-ever you go,” said the woman, who is in her 30s. “You could get scammed meeting someone at a bar. It doesn’t matter. You just have to do your due diligence, and I didn’t.”
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