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Gurugram: A 66-year-old retired banker from Gurugram recently had a to pay a significant price for falling in love over Facebook. According to a TOI report, the man recently discovered that he was cheated by his ‘Facebook chat friend’ who had claimed that she was travelling from London to India for meeting him.

According to the report, the retired banker who lived in DLF-1 area of Gurugram, gave his Facebook chat friend Rs 13 lakh from his own savings and even took a massive loan of Rs 22 lakh from private lenders to help his ‘virtual girlfriend’ who claimed to have been detained by immigration officials at Mumbai airport over documents.

Detailing how the virtual love story started, the report suggested that the episode started on May 19 when the retired banker – still a bachelor – received a friend request on Facebook from a woman, who claimed her name was Jenny Anderson. Not knowing of the events that would befall, the man accepted her request.

Soon after the development, the duo started chatting frequently with each other and the woman later asked for his WhatsApp number, following which they started conversing on a regular basis.

The man has been quoted in the report blaming his virtual girlfriend Jenny for conning him. He explained that Jenny claimed to be single and was living with her mother in London, where she owns a jewellery shop. Jenny told him that she frequently travels to many countries, including India, to procure gold.

It may be noted that on May 26, the woman had told the retired banker that she wanted to celebrate the 11th anniversary of her shop and wanted to invite him. She even asked for his home address in India, expressing desire to send him some gifts. While he shared his address with the woman, he told that her that it would not be possible for him to visit her.

Just a few days later, Jenny told him via WhatsApp that she was coming to India and will board a flight on June 1. She told the retired banker that she would first land in Mumbai and then take a connecting flight to Delhi, where she would stay for a week before leaving for Dubai.

Jenny then told him that her main reason to visit India was to meet him apart from her business. The woman even asked if she could stay at the retired banker’s house. However, on the day of her flight, the man received a call from a woman named Pooja, who claimed to be from the immigration department at Mumbai airport.

Pooja told the man that Jenny Anderson from the UK had landed in India but was denied from boarding her flight to Delhi as she did not meet two mandatory requirements. The report suggested that Jenny was carrying Rs 68 lakh in British Pounds without any valid documents and was also not carrying a health certificate. While this was certainly not the case, Pooja then handed over the phone to Jenny who immediately started crying over the phone. She then requested her new-found lover to pay the fine as she had no other point of contact in the country.

Worth mentioning that Jenny had asked him to take a loan and promised to return the money to him. For the next few days, he kept on getting calls from Pooja and another man who claimed to be Kumar Sen from the Delhi airport authority; both blackmailed him and threatened to file a case against him.

The man eventually had to deposit Rs 35 lakh to different bank accounts in a total of 20 transactions between June 1 and June 15. However, he was left stunned when Jenny did not even turn up to meet him.

He tried establishing contact with her through multiple mediums, but Jenny never replied. He has filed a complaint at DLF 1 police station recently. Police told the publication that a complaint has been registered with regards to the case and the department is probing the case.