'I lost £160,000 to a lonely hearts fraudster': Britain's oldest first-time mother, 57, gave cash to man she met online thinking it was being invested in her daughter's future
- Susan Tollefsen was 57 when she had her daughter Freya in 2008 after IVF
- Duped into an investment she thought would provide for her child's future
- Sting has left her virtually destitute – and she still owes £32,000 to friends
Britain’s oldest first-time mother considered suicide after being conned out of nearly £160,000 by a fraudster she met on a lonely hearts website.
Susan Tollefsen, who was 57 when she had her daughter Freya in 2008 following IVF, was duped into handing over the money for an investment she thought would provide for her child’s future.
But after he failed to turn up to a series of meetings, she called her bank – only to be told that she had been scammed.
Debt: Mrs Tollefsen with Freya, seven, also owes £32,000 to friends who lent her cash to bankroll the bogus deal
The sting has left her virtually destitute – and she still owes £32,000 to friends who lent her money to bankroll the bogus deal.
She said: ‘I thought I was investing in something that would set her up for the rest of her life but instead I was being played like an idiot. I’ve felt so low I’ve considered suicide. It’s only Freya and my love for my daughter that has stopped me.’
Mrs Tollefsen, now 64, became pregnant using a donor egg and sperm from her partner Nick Mayer, who was 46 at the time. But the ‘shock’ of having a child so late in life led to their separation, and she has since admitted she was too old to start a family.
Debt: Mrs Tollefsen with Freya, seven, also owes £32,000 to friends who lent her cash to bankroll the bogus deal
Lonely and worried about bringing up her daughter on her own, she joined the dating site Plenty Of Fish in 2012.
Soon afterwards the special needs teacher – whose extraordinarily high IQ of 175 puts her in the ‘genius’ category – was contacted by a man claiming to be an Italian diamond dealer called Glenn Vanslyke.
He gained her confidence by describing how his wife had died and he had been left to bring up their teenage daughter alone. ‘There was nothing romantic about it but he was incredibly charming and I had no reason not to trust him,’ said Mrs Tollefsen, of Romford, Essex. ‘He said he had friends in common with my ex-husband, who I split with in the Eighties.’
Record: Mrs Tollefsen in 2008 with Freya, at just three days old, and her former partner Nick Mayer
Six months later, Vanslyke told her he had financial difficulties involving a land deal, so Mrs Tollefsen began sending him sums of money from her £1,400 a month state and teacher’s pensions.
She also sold her jewellery and gave him the proceeds. A few months later, he said he would repay her trust by giving her a share of the deal.
He opened what he claimed was an offshore account in Brussels in both their names. After he emailed her details of what ‘looked like a genuine ING bank account’ with £30,000 already in it, she sold a flat she owned in Sweden and gave him the £25,000 profit.
Over the next few months she gave him sums amounting to tens of thousands of pounds. So when he asked for more money she began to become suspicious, having already handed over £159,000, including more than £32,000 from two friends. She demanded a meeting in December 2013 and drove to the rendezvous in Brussels with a neighbour.
‘Just before I arrived I got a call from Glenn’s daughter saying he had been hit by a car in Madrid on his way over,’ Mrs Tollefsen said.
‘She sounded so distraught and was crying. It was all so plausible.’
She sounded so distraught and was crying. It was all so plausible
Vanslyke then set up a meeting with their bank manager, but was suddenly called away on business and had to miss it.
Next, he sent a ‘tall African man’ who took her to a warehouse and showed her a ‘steel box full of dollars’.
Mrs Tollefsen was then convinced to speak to various people who claimed they were accountants or bankers.
There was also a terrifying meeting with ‘business partners’ in a hotel room – two ‘really big African men’ who insisted on seeing her alone.
‘They produced a machine which they said they needed to help the deal go through. They put these white, cheque-sized sheets of paper through the machine and it came out the other side as money.
‘They told me there were so many complications sending money around Europe it was sometimes done like this.’
Afterwards, she was told to contact an ING bank manager called Hans Jensen, who would arrange a bank transfer if she paid a fee of £6,000.
She told the Sunday Mirror: ‘It was then that I called the bank’s customer services, who told me nobody of that name worked there and I had probably been the victim of a scam.’
Mrs Tollefsen, who had retired but is now having to work again to pay off her debts, added: ‘One friend asked me how I could be so intelligent but so stupid.
‘That really hurt. I was just trying to provide for my daughter’s future – but I’ve lost almost everything.’
DailyMail
Record: Mrs Tollefsen in 2008 with Freya, at just three days old, and her former partner Nick Mayer
She sounded so distraught and was crying. It was all so plausible
