I was conned out of £20K by a dashing Naval Captain – I thought he loved me but I was left humiliated

A UK-BASED woman has revealed how she lost a whopping £20k after being conned by a US Navy captain.

Appearing on the BBC1 programme, For Love or Money, Alison,50, shared the terrifying story with hosts Kym Marsh and Ashley John-Baptiste, as cases of fraud have sky-rocketed.

When Alison met a US Navy captain Karl online, she thought she’d found a gentleman she was ready to spend the rest of her life with.

However, things took a sharp turn, and instead of a fairy tale, she was now in a living nightmare, with £20k gone.

''He looked vert attractive. Looked really nice,'' she described Karl, whom she found on uniformdating.com.

The single mum decided to find her true love online after ending a relationship in 2017.

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''He was in the American Navy, but lived in, so he said, Leeds, at the time.''

At first, things were off to a good and promising start, as the would-be Romeo would send Alison cute messages every day.

''He was telling me about where he was and what he was doing.

''He called me ''honey'' and he said ''if you permit to call you that''.''

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With promises of spending the future together, the 50-year-old mum found herself swept away.

But then something happened – one day, Karl, who was in Kuwait at the time, asked if he could send his luggage to her house in Nottingham.

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''So I gave him my address and that's where we started to have a few problems.''

After agreeing to have his bags delivered to her home, Alison received an email from the shipping company, which explained that Karl's luggage hand been held by Customs.

For it to get released, the would-be Romeo needed money – £3,000, £4,000, Alison recalled, almost £2,000 of which she added from her savings.

But the bags, which allegedly contained a vast amount of his retirement funds, never got to Alison's doorstep – instead, they ended up with the Turkish Customs.

Here, desperate to help as much as she could, Alison agreed to send £8,500.

''I was going through a difficult time.

''The fact that he was showing me an interest and everything was kind of boosting my confidence and making me feel better about myself.''

Invested and ready to start their life together, she even rushed to Heathrow Airport to welcome Karl – but he, of course, never arrived.

What did arrive was a frantic text message from Karl's sister, Karen, who said he had been arrested in Dubai – and again, needed Alison to transfer money for his release.

''I think in total, in this whole scenario of this, […] I probably parted with […] over £20,000.''

Despite fearing the worst, Alison still had some hope of the two being together one day, as she continued: ''I'd like to think it's all true.

''And then part of me probably needs to accept that he isn't who he is.''

Listen to her story, the hosts concluded that emotional Alison seemed ''vulnerable'' and ''very emotionally involved'' with Karl.

During their research, they found out the military documents were not legitimate and that his sister's, Karen's phone number had been registered to a person named Martha.

More worryingly, his phone number also belonged to a different person – Fatima – whom a few people had warned of.

They also learnt that Karl's IP address was based in Nigeria and had been used to create over a whopping 600 other scammer accounts.

The photos had been ripped off Facebook from a man who was indeed in the military – but he wasn't Karl.

''I think I'm relieved, in all fairness because it's been going on for so long.

''It's kind of like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

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''I'm stunned at the lengths that people go to in order to get your money.

''I can out this nightmare of a chapter to rest and get back to being me.''

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