Students lose thousands to sugar daddy con artists

BRITISH police and fraud investigators are hunting conmen who are duping young women out of thousands of pounds by posing as sugar daddies on internet dating websites.

At least 40 women have become victims of the scammers, but many more are thought to be too embarrassed to come forward.

Several legitimate websites, such as Seeking Arrangement (now called Seeking), provide a matchmaking service for those looking for a wealthy older person willing to lavish them with gifts and even a regular allowance in return for dates. Seeking claims to have signed up more than 500,000 British university students.

Having struck up an online relationship, the fake sugar daddies trick their victims, who are often in their early 20s, into handing over personal information and bank details. They are told this is so they can be sent a gift or credit card they can use.

Instead, the fraudster uses the information to set up accounts in the victim’s name, leaving them with thousands of pounds of debt, or gains access to their online banking and spends the victim’s money.

It is unclear if one person is masterminding the same scam repeatedly or if multiple culprits are using the same method, potentially having bought a script on the dark web.

Mary (not her real name), a ‘‘sugar baby’’ who was scammed, said she met a sugar daddy named ‘‘Duncan’’ on Seeking Arrangement. He offered her a £2000 (NZ$3800) monthly allowance, shopping trips, holidays, and unlimited access to his card in exchange for three or four meetings a month. Duncan convinced Mary to send him her personal details, saying he needed them to set up a second card on his American Express account for her. Instead, he spent £2000 on an Amex card he had set up in her name, and conned her into transferring £2000 of her own money to him.

‘‘Sugaring’’ has become increasingly popular, and there are even conferences where those involved discuss the etiquette and learn how to stay safe. Seeking is one of the most popular sites, with 38 million members. Another, WhatsYourPrice.com, says it has more than four million members.

A spokesman for Seeking said it had recently moved away from the ‘‘sugaring’’ rhetoric and now promoted itself as a site where people could ‘‘just date up’’.

He said the site continued to introduce safety features, monitored user reports to identify repeat scammers, and used artificial intelligence to flag suspicious behaviour.