A DUBLIN woman was duped out of €25,000 after being “manipulated” by a fraudster pretending to be Coldplay’s Chris Martin.
Scammers used artificial intelligence to convince the woman to believe she was in a romantic relationship with the popular singer.
The con artist impersonating Coldplay’s Chris Martin contacted the woman after a comment she made to a post on Coldplay’s X account in 2021.
Speaking to RTE reporter Barry Lenihan, she said: “I didn’t believe it was true initially, but then I was like, could it be?
“And I gave my number, and he contacted me via WhatsApp and Facebook with fake Chris Martin accounts as well. And then, he contacted me on Skype.
“I think I gave a one-word reply to a post that they put up, and he contacted me from that. So there are, you see, trawling readers comments and targeting people that way.”
She continued: “He was like, ‘keep this to ourselves, you know, I can’t really go public because I’m a big name star’, like obviously [and] I want you to keep it secret.’
“And then he moved in Skype, and he kind of started grooming me a bit more and more.
“He built up trust, and he was very smooth. He’d be humorous in his conversation. He’d be kind with his words towards me. But he did say initially, don’t tell anyone that you’re talking to me.
“It was friendly initially, and then he kind of started saying I’m interested in you, and I like what I see in your pictures. He got to the point where he started asking me for flight money to come to Ireland to visit me.”
The Dublin woman told RTE’s Drivetime she ended up giving him a “large sum of money” as the scammer kept claiming his accounts “were frozen due to the cessation of tours” due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
She added: “I only did a search on Chris Martin after I got scammed, that I could see he had about €150 million in wealth and a girlfriend.
“I said to him at one point, ‘You have a girlfriend’. He was like, ‘No, that’s fake. It’s all for showbiz’. It’s put on talk.’
“He would contact me from 7am until 12am, all day long, talking and messaging me and being romantic. I thought it was the real person I was talking to, Chris Martin. It was going on for about four months.”
Scammers first asked between €150 and €400 to supposedly assist an orphanage Chris Martin had established, then €2,200 to help fund flight tickets.
The con artist then asked for a loan of €22,000 as he claimed he couldn’t access funds, adding to a loss of over €25,000.
‘DIFFERENT WOMEN’S BANK ACCOUNTS’
The woman said: “He started sending me images of the real Chris Martin, but they were like direct headshots of him looking at the camera, images of orphans that he said he was looking after.
“I got a phone call often. In the video, there was Phil Harvey, his manager, and Guy Berryman, another band member.
“He kept using different women’s bank accounts, three in the UK initially and then a woman in the US who I did the large transfer to.
“It was my pension account in Dublin. I had it in a savings scheme in Dublin. I went into the branch and I did three or four transfers of €5,000. If they had’ve probed me I would have said it’s a loan for Chris Martin. At that point, they would have realised it was a scammer.”
CRIMINAL COMPLAINT
It was when she talked to her brother that she realised she was scammed after he made contact with Coldplay head office in London.
She made a criminal complaint, and a cross-border investigation was mounted involving the PSNI and the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau.
Her bank has confirmed she was the victim of authorised push payment fraud, which happens when someone is tricked into sending money to a fraudster posing as a genuine payee.
She said: “I was devastated, really devastated. Like it was such a large amount of money. Initially. I was like, I was so embarrassed. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was really depressed. I felt really stupid. I cried a lot.
‘STILL RECOVERING’
“I’m still recovering three years on. I have hope that I’ll get the money back, but I just don’t know what way it’ll work out.
“I’m fine, I’m trying to be positive. I’ve moved on. It’s a lot of money, but he didn’t harm me. I deleted all my social media. I don’t take phone calls from anyone randomly. I have caller ID on.”
