Woman Scammed Out Of £5,000 By Fake Astronaut Who Was ‘In Need Of Oxygen’

A woman has lost £5,000 to an online scammer who tricked her into sending him money by pretending to be an astronaut who was stuck in space and needed cash to buy oxygen.

The Japanese victim, 85, was swindled out of thousands after falling in love online with the fake astronaut who sought her help after claiming to be stranded on a spaceship in the middle of the galaxy.

The pair first met on social media in July, and by September, the scammer told her he was “in space on a spaceship right now” and was “under attack and in need of oxygen”.

Police in Hokkaido said the victim, who lives alone, was then persuaded to transfer around one million yen (£5,000).

Seems the Nigerian Prince scam was getting a bit cliche and saturated and so now we finally have an upgrade: Nigerian astronaut? Even still, I can imagine the fraudster cracking up laughing as he typed out that he was under attack in space and need oxygen money before he perished. “No way this works”, he was probably thinking.

And yet it did, because his victim was an 85-year-old Japanese lady who lived alone, which prevents this from being an amusing story and is just devastatingly sad instead. I mean, it’s basically elder abuse as well as just a vicious romance scam. At least if the victim was just plain stupid, we could have a little chuckle about it. But taking advantage of a (probably) senile 85-year-old Japanese lady’s loneliness? Just so morally f****d up in so many ways.

Best thing we can all do now is call our grandparents and check in with them to make sure they’re not currently in the midst of being duped by a fake astronaut who’s running out of fuel in space and has no back-up plan other than to ask an old lady he met online a couple months earlier for cash.

Better yet, take your grandparents out to the cinema or for a nice meal. The more time they spend with you, the less time they have for this nonsense.

For the woman who was scammed out of $830,000 after believing she was in a relationship with Brad Pitt, click HERE.