A North Carolina woman said a scammer pretending to be a solder cheated her out of nearly $19,000.
Melinda Flowers told ABC affiliate WTVD she met a man claiming to be a soldier in Afghanistan on an online dating site.
She said he did not ask her for money. Instead, he sent her a check for $18,900 and asked her to forward the money to his lawyer.
The Chapel Hill woman said she then deposited the money into her account at Sun Trust.
"So they held it for ten days, called me up and said, 'oh the check's fine, we had it confirmed by U.S. Bank,'" Flowers said.
Flowers said since the bank told her the check was good, she did what the man asked and wired money to his two lawyers. Something unexpected happened shortly after.
"So then I got a call a day or two after that, after I deposited the money into the accounts that, oops, the money was not there after all," she said. "And so you now owe us $18,900."
She then had to take out a loan to pay all of the money back. SunTrust closed her account.
The bank said since the check was deposited in her account Flowers is responsible.
Read the bank's full statement by clicking here.
WTVD did a Google search of the man Flowers met and found the same pictures he sent to her were also reportedly used on numerous scams involving dating sites.
