A Georgia man pretended to be a millionaire to defraud a woman of $80,000 through a dating site.
What We Know:
- An Alpharetta woman reported to the Gwinnett County Police Department that she met a man named John Hill on Match.com. The pair talked to each other on March 27 and met the same day. He allegedly told the woman he was a millionaire and over the course of their short romance, he convinced her they were in love and wanted to buy a house together.
- They selected a house and decided to take it one step further by agreeing to get married. The woman gave him more than $80,000 to go towards purchasing the home and furniture. After exchanging the money, Hill stopped contacting her.
- The 35-year-old suspect’s—whose full name is John Martin Hill—last known address was near Duluth in an apartment he shared with a woman and child, according to Gwinnett County News. An investigation into Hill revealed that he has changed his name over five times in the past two and a half years. He is accused of committing similar crimes in Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.
- Match.com has had at least two more incidents like this one. One happened in 2014 followed by another in 2016. Similar incidents have also happened on other dating sites like MillionaireMatch.com. Romance scams are commonplace and happen to thousands of people across the U.S. every year, but the numbers grow significantly larger each year.
- In 2015, there were 8,500 romance scams reported to the Federal Trade Commission and the victims lost about $33 million. Just last year, there were 21,000 romance scams reported and the cost for the victims totaled $143 million, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Hill now has an active warrant in Gwinnett County for Theft by Deception and his whereabouts are unknown.
John Martin Hill (35) has an active warrant for Theft by Deception. After meeting a woman on an on-line dating website, he convinced her that they were in love & should buy a home together. She gave him +$80k. He fled. @StopCrimeATL 404-577-8477
Info: https://t.co/kLiP53itgl pic.twitter.com/huQU1A3n9P
— Gwinnett County Police (@GwinnettPd) May 21, 2019
