A young couple can no longer afford their dream wedding after the bride-to-be was scammed while looking to earn some extra cash in an online side hustle.
Ashlie Campbell, 27, lost $35,000 after inquiring about a ‘data processing’ job with Virtuoso Travel she found through a Facebook listing.
The disability and aged care support worker from Geelong was promised a salary of $100,000 per year to write fake reviews for the legitimate travel company.
She messaged the person who posted the job and was quickly connected with a ‘mentor’ called April, whom Ms Campbell talked with over WhatsApp.
April told her to begin writing reviews on a specific program but Ms Campbell kept being interrupted by a pop-up telling her she had ‘insufficient funds’ on the account.
Her mentor explained that Ms Campbell needed to ‘temporarily’ add funds to her account which would be paid back once the reviews were written.
Despite adding the funds, the pop-up kept appearing and by the time Ms Campbell handed up her final review, she had deposited $300.
The next day the money was refunded through a Crypto trading platform with a $50 commission added on top, which made Ms Campbell think the job was real.
Ashlie Campbell, 27, lost $35,000 in an online scam that promised her a $100,000 salary to write fake reviews
Ms Campbell responded to a job listing on Facebook and was quickly put in touch with a ‘mentor’ called April who instructed her to deposit money onto a separate online platform
Ms Campbell said her first pay check ‘stupidly made me gain trust’ and she kept writing reviews.
The pop-up kept appearing and she paid the recharge fee each time before eventually complaining to April about it.
‘I said this isn’t fair I don’t like this and she said: ‘Well you know you’ve already gone this far, do you want your money back or not?’,’ Ms Campbell told 7NEWS.
‘I [was] pressured into continuing and by the time I completed my reviews I had spent just under $35,000.’
Once the reviews were done, April explained that one more payment of $10,000 was needed to upgrade Ms Campbell to a ‘pro’ reviewing account and then just another final deposit of $26,000 to withdraw it all.
Ms Campbell told her mentor ‘I’m not rich’ and that she would not be able to afford the final fees before realising it was a scam all along.
By that time, April had already blocked her and Ms Campbell could no longer message anyone else from the company.
Ms Campbell felt too ashamed to tell her fiancé, Dylan, that she had lost their entire savings in the online scam
Ms Campbell is now trying to raise awareness so that other people like her don’t fall for similar scams in the future
Ms Campbell reported the scam to police but they explained nothing could be done to recover the money.
She struggled to find the courage to tell her fiancé, Dylan, what had happened because she was ‘so ashamed … thinking ‘what have I done?”.
The money was meant to go towards their wedding, engagement party and a new car for Ms Campbell.
Ms Campbell had just earned her Certificate 4 in Disability and Age Care and the new car was to transport ‘wheelchairs and accessories’ for the people she cares for.
‘I feel as a support worker, I am always giving back to the Community … I’m never usually one to ask for help,’ she wrote in a GoFundMe.
‘I’m very aware that so many other people have been affected by scams and I know l’m not the only one.
‘I really want to start raising more awareness around how people can be easily tricked into these scams and how many different kinds of scams there are.’
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