By Fran Bowden,Lucy Laing

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Tentatively moving her relationship status to ‘widow’ on her social media accounts, it was a major step for Ruth Grover. It had been 10 years since she’d lost her beloved husband Jeff to skin cancer , but she only now felt ready to fully accept it. She says: “I was heartbroken – it had taken me such a long time to get used to life without Jeff, but now I was ready to label myself a widow.” The next morning Ruth, now 69, from Hartlepool, was surprised to see three messages in her inbox . She says: “I opened one and it was from a young man I’d never met, telling me how beautiful I was. I didn’t know him and I certainly wasn’t looking for love. But I was intrigued and accepted the message. “I opened the other two and they were also from men. All three said they were generals in the US army. They were widowed like me.” Instantly, her alarm bells rang. After decades of working in the control room at Cleveland police , where she had read numerous reports about scams, she was no one’s fool. She says: “I started looking online and there were hundreds of reports of women being scammed like this – by men pretending to be from the army and also being widowed.” That was 2010 and there has been no stopping her. “I became obsessed with learning more and more about romance scams,” says Ruth, who has a daughter Rebecca, son Adam, and is now a gran to Lottie, three. “I wanted to warn others about my messages, so I created a Facebook group called ScamHaters United.” Astonishingly, it took just over a week for 1,000 people to join her group. She says: “I discovered there were formulae that scammers used to manipulate their victims. They’d often tell them they were working in the army or on an oil rig. And they would try to win them over with a sob story, such as saying their wife had died of cancer. “Often left with young children, they were bringing them up as a single dad and, eventually, after building trust, they would run into some ‘crisis’ which needed an injection of cash.” Horrified by the reach of the romance scammers – as she received messages from worried women around the world – Ruth made it her mission to help their victims. While she hasn’t recovered their money, her sympathetic, but sensible, counsel has helped them to cut off contact with the scammers and disentangle themselves from the fake relationships. According to Ruth, the swindlers can be very convincing and really get their claws into the women, who become their prey. She advises victims to report scams to their bank and to the police, but most scammers are operating outside the UK, so she has not seen any prosecutions. Ruth has even been undercover, posing as a scammer in chat rooms and on social media groups, where organisations swap lists of potential victims. “We found scamming groups were swapping scripts – like who to be, such as servicemen, oil rig workers etc. And they’d sell each other photos to match the scripts,” she says. “I just watched and gathered intelligence.” ScamHaters United has now spread across the world, with volunteers working in the USA and Australia who, like Ruth, help women to escape their scammers’ clutches. She says: “We get around 300 new messages each day from women who think they are being duped, or who have been. “My advice is always the same, to cut off contact. I also remind them they aren’t alone. I’ve even come across a 72-year-old woman who thought the man she was talking to was Sir Paul McCartney. Sadly I’ve never seen a victim get their cash back. But there’s no better feeling than helping someone escape from scammers. “I’ve lost count of the people we have helped, but it’s thousands. And I know Jeff would have been proud of the work I’m doing. “Every day my inbox is full of messages from women all across the world sharing about how they have been duped. I also get them from men, whose images have been stolen – wanting to set the record straight. I arrange live chats with the, where they can speak and explain that they’re really ordinary men, often happily married – then we post them on Instagram and YouTube , so people can see who they really are.” Ruth says: ‘’It makes me sick to hear how these scammers prey on innocent people.” Here three people who Ruth has met through ScamHaters United share their stories: Pushed to the brink, after being scammed out of nearly £100,000 by a scammer, Rebecca D’Antonio, who lives in the USA, even considered suicide. She says: “When I joined a dating site in 2016, I wanted to find a meaningful relationship. “When ‘Matthew’ sent me a message, I felt an instant connection with him. He told me his wife had died of cancer and he had a five year old son. He was charismatic and charming. We were messaging each other daily and speaking on the phone for a year. “Then he said he was travelling with work and taking his son with him. He told me his bank card wasn’t working, as he was abroad, asking if I could send him 200 dollars. “It spiralled from there. Soon he was asking for money for hotel rooms and to pay his workers. He said he’d pay it all back to me when he got back home. It got to the point where I knew I wasn’t going to get my money back and I felt so desperate that I planned to take my own life. “I’d lost my home because of the debt. I told Matthew and all he could say was ‘do what you have to do…’ I went out for a meal with a friend and told her what I was about to do and she stopped me from doing it. I’ve finally got my life back on track now and sharing my experience has saved lives. “A woman who was also considering suicide heard me talking on a podcast and she decided not to do it. So I’m glad that I was able to help her.” Cathy Brennan-Coffey, 63, is a retired health care professional, living in Australia. Widowed in 2015 after her husband died in a road traffic accident, too devastated to work, she took early retirement. She says: “I followed a social media channel about art appreciation and it was there that I got a message from a man, in July 2023. I loved the attention. He told me he was a civilian mechanical engineer in the US army and, after a while, said he was going on deployment, but wanted to stay in contact. “Then he started asking for money, starting with paying for Wifi, so he could keep in touch. Then he said the food was terrible, so he needed money for better food. “I even paid for a flight for him to come and see me, but he never arrived at the airport. I’d always been financially smart, but when you are in a romance scam, I was listening to my heart and not my head. “In January last year, he ghosted me, as I had no money left to send him. I was a total mess. My daughter, who I’m very close to, got me through it. When I found out about ScamHaters United, I couldn’t believe that there were so many women who had gone through the same thing as I had. And it really helped me get back on track with my life.” Steven Kelly’s photo has been hijacked for use by scammers for the last seven years. It’s nearly ruined his outdoor survival business, South West Survival – that organises stag dos, birthday parties and corporate events – and led to threats against both himself and his beautician wife Jenny, 41. Plymouth-based Steven , 39, has a 17-year-old daughter, while Jenny, 41, has a 15-year-old son. Steven says: “It’s been so upsetting for me and my family. “People have threatened to beat up Jenny and to get me if I appear at events. Having my photo ripped off to use in romantic scams has nearly ruined my life. “I first realised my photo was being used like this seven years ago, when one of the lads in work messaged me to ask me if I’d created a new account on social media, as he’d seen one. I hadn’t, but shortly afterwards, women started to message me. I couldn’t understand what had happened. “Then, gradually, I pieced together that these women thought they had been talking to me for months. They thought I was a single dad who was looking for love. I tried to assure them that it wasn’t me, that I was happily married. “Jenny found it difficult to come to terms with at first and it’s been hard on her. I’ve reported it to Action Fraud, but because the scammers keep opening new social media accounts in my name daily, they can’t be traced. “I still use social media. I have to promote my survival business. But I wake up to 20 messages a day from women who think they are in a relationship with me, who think I’m moving to different countries like Brazil to be with them. And I get torrents of abuse and threats constantly.”