Inside terrible plight of woman scammed into thinking she was dating Brad Pitt
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A woman who was duped into handing over nearly £700,000 by a scammer using AI to pose as Brad Pitt is homeless and penniless, it is reported. The woman, only referred to in media reports as Anne, has been harassed so mercilessly online she's deleted all her social media pages, it is understood. Since her misfortune emerged, the 53-year-old woman has been branded "dumb", "naïve" and "stupid" by trolls.
Anne parted with the cash after believing that the Hollywood star needed the money for cancer treatment. She had reportedly become convinced that she was communicating with the real person due to AI-generated images. The French woman said that she fell for the scammer as her relationship with her millionaire husband hit the rocks and she was taken in by poems and romantic gestures.
But now, her lawyer Laurène Hanna said Anne is desperately trying to recover the money and, in doing so, is homeless and broke. Ms Hanna, based in Paris, said: "Love scams on the internet are not new. Anne is really not the only one. What my client needs is to be given some sensible advice and to be treated with dignity.".
Ms Hanna told how she is helping Anne pursue a civil case against her French bank for allowing her to make such huge money transfers to overseas accounts unchecked. Anne, an interior designer, said the ordeal started when she received a message on social media from someone claiming to be the actor's mother after sharing photos of her lavish ski trip to Tignes on Instagram.
A day later, she received a second message from an account posing as Brad Pitt, saying his mother had spoken a lot about her already. The victim, who said she was going through a difficult period with her millionaire husband, told how she struck up an unlikely friendship with the account from February 2023, receiving poems and kind affirmations.
