Fake Tom Cruise, fetish app scams take $40K from Wayne County women

Meira Gebel | Detroit Free Press

What would it take for you to hand over your personal information online? The promise of fast cash? What about a relationship with a celebrity?

Well, you're not alone.

A Dearborn woman was scammed out of $30,000 after she believed she was in a legitimate, online relationship with Hollywood actor Tom Cruise.

Another woman, a resident of Taylor, handed over her bank account log-in information to someone she met on a BDSM app, FetLife, for the promise of money.

The internet is decades old, yet scams are decades older. Shouldn't the telltale signs of one be thoroughly sniffed out by now?

Apparently not.

The Dearborn woman said she friended "Tom Cruise" on Facebook nearly six months ago.

The faux jumping-on-Oprah's-couch star then instructed her to deposit three fraudulent checks worth $9,800 each into her personal checking account with TCF Bank from the Wells Fargo, according to the Press & Guide.

After chatting and exchanging pictures with an unknown person on FetLife, an online social network marketed as "the ultimate place to meet new kinksters in your area," a Taylor woman gave out her Chase bank account information when promised money.

When the cash never came, she deleted the FetLife app. It was when she went to the bank to make a withdrawal that she saw her account balance in the negative — $7,000 in the red, according to the News-Herald. She then went to the Taylor Police Department to say she wanted to prosecute if the person is ever identified.

So maybe the next time you are approached online by Ryan Gosling, maybe it's not exactly destiny ... per se.

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