Swedish Pernilla Sjoholm, who transferred money to an ING bank account at the request of a scammer she met on dating platform Tinder, will not receive compensation from the bank. The judge judged monday that ING is not liable, because the bank ‘has done sufficient investigation’. Sjoholm had demanded compensation of EUR 32,000 from ING, because she felt that the bank had failed to fulfill its duty of care.
In November 2018, Sjoholm transferred a total of about 32,000 euros to an ING bank account of a woman – it later turned out to be a cat catcher of her scammer. She demanded compensation of the same amount, because ING would have known that a scammer was involved when she was still in the dark about it herself. ING states that the account holder was only seen as a potential victim and not as an accomplice of a scammer. The judge did not agree with Sjoholm and ruled that at the time Sjoholm made the payment, ING “did not know that the payment account (…) was being used for fraudulent purposes”.
The practices of Israeli Shimon Hayut, who presented himself to his dating partners as Simon Leviev, the son of a very wealthy diamond dealer, became known to a large audience in the documentary The Tinder Swindler. It shows how three women – in addition to Sjoholm the Norwegian Cecilie Fjellhøy and the Dutch Ayleen Charlotte – transfer him large sums of money, because he tells them that his life would be in danger. Last year, the court had already ruled against the Dutch Charlotte when she had demanded compensation. That case is still pending on appeal.
Dating fraud is a problem that mainly affects divorced people, mostly women, and widows. The total amounts associated with the scams have risen sharply in the Netherlands in recent years. In 2021 it was still seven million euros, while in 2020 about four million euros was defrauded, according to figures from the Fraud Helpdesk.
Also read: Simon was not a generous, wealthy businessman, but a con man — dating fraud is also more common in the Netherlands