JOHOR BARU: It started with a harmless conversation that blossomed into romance.
But what first appeared to be another successful match by the dating app's algorithm morphed into a nightmare for 54-year-old Kevin (not his real name).
By the end of his ill-fated romance, the plantation manager not only had his heart shredded to pieces, but his bank account was also cleaned out of RM217,500.
His troubles began less than a month ago when he met a woman named Linda on a dating app.
They began talking, then moved their conversations to WhatsApp.
Kevin found Linda, who claimed to be a businesswoman, charming and attractive.
They did not only chat via text messages, they had video calls, too.
It wasn't long before Linda introduced him to "her world" of cryptocurrency trading.
"She was so convincing about her trading success," he told New Straits Times.
He started "small" by investing RM10,500 into Linda's account.
"She often shared the profit growth and I started trusting her more."
Linda then encouraged Kevin to set up an account and he did.
Later, she claimed she needed a significant amount of money to unlock a larger payout for both of them.
Kevin said he feared their future together was at stake as she had promised him a new life together with their earnings.
"I transferred RM207,000, my entire retirement savings, into three bank accounts."
Then Linda claimed their accounts were blocked and she needed RM225,000 to unblock them. This time, Kevin refused.
"We argued about it. When I became sceptical and demanded we meet in person, she ended the call. She was unreachable after that. She deleted all our Whats-App conversations and blocked my number."
He tried calling her using other numbers, but it was too late, her number was no longer in service.
A brokenhearted Kevin did the only thing he could do and lodged a police report.