A 69-year-old widower has revealed how he was left homeless and short of his £89,000 life savings after falling for a non-existent woman.
Rodrick Lodge, from the village of Send in Surrey, had flown nearly nine hours to Kenya in order to meet "Anita" - but when he turned up at Nairobi Airport, there was nobody waiting for him at arrivals.
"Anita" had swindled former aid worker Lodge out of money throughout the pair's apparent online relationship in order to build a dream home for the "couple" and pay off medical bills and tuition fees.
It was one of the 69-year-old's former associates, Mary - whom he met working in Nairobi in 2020 - that put Lodge in touch with the supposed 39-year-old woman.
Rodrick Lodge had been scammed out of nearly £90k
PA
"Anita" had shared a variety of images with the widower - both of their apparent future house, as well as a number of more intimate photos - but the duo had only communicated over messaging app Viber.
After their messages started mentioning marriage and a life together, Lodge eventually travelled to the Kenyan capital to meet the "39-year-old" - but when he arrived, he received messages telling him she was in Mombasa.
But still, the widower held out, renting an Airbnb while she made excuses as to why they couldn't meet up.
He told the Daily Mirror: "She was always putting things off, making excuses - I realise now I was such a fool... I should have stopped it there and then."
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Lodge sent her thousands via the wire service M-Pesa Kenya
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In May, Lodge said she had told him her father was in hospital, and she needed further financial support with his bills - but when the 69-year-old checked her supposed dad's name with the hospital in question, there was nobody there.
The widower finally cut off contact with "Anita" after that point - but by that time, he'd paid out some 15million Kenyan Shillings (£89,000) - and his ex-pal Mary wasn't picking up the phone.
He said he thought that he'd never be able to recoup his savings, despite reporting the scam to Kenyan police.
And this week, after cobbling together £600 for a plane ticket from friends, Lodge has finally returned to Britain - where he'll be homeless, without access to his pension and bank account, and living in a Travelodge on a council's money until Tuesday.
The heartbroken 69-year-old said: "I doubt that Anita even exists... I've no idea who I've been communicating with - I'm in such a mess.
"I've been so stupid - she never existed. It was a creation... I'm totally lost. I have zero cash and am relying on a couple of friends. I'm going to be a poor man for a long time. It was all a scam, I realise that now. I have no family, no kids that can help me. It's over for me."
Lodge has sought help from UK-based legal firm Richardson Hartley Law, whose partner Martin Richardson called the ordeal "a classic case of a romance scam" - and urged his bank to consider their voluntary code, to which they adhere in order to protect vulnerable customers.
Richardson said: "When these large sums of money were being transferred we would have expected, in accordance with that voluntary code, the bank to have made pretty stringent enquiries as to why the monies were suddenly being moved in such large sums. If those obligations had been followed we think this scam could have been either stopped completely or stopped a lot earlier."