How DID we fall for internet lotharios who took us for £100,000? They're sane and careful with money - but Beatrice and Ann fell prey to online conmen targeting women looking for love

Linda Hull, 62, (left), Beatrice Jenkins, 46, (right) and Ann Mather, 59, (centre), were all duped into handing money over to ruthless conmen who'd wooed and romanced them online. 


But it's gone, never to be retrieved, in the hands of a professional criminal - or perhaps even a gang - fuelling one of the UK's fastest growing, yet largely unreported, crimes, known as Romance Fraud. And it is this shame, according to Action Fraud, the UK's national fraud and cyber crime reporting centre, that is fuelling the crimewave. There were 3,543 reports of romance fraud made to the organisation last year, totalling losses of £33 million, an increase of £4 million compared with 2013.