Warren woman on dating site may have been pawn in unemployment benefit scam
![Image](https://WFMJ.images.worldnow.com/images/14264754_G.jpg?auto=webp&disable=upscale&height=560&fit=bounds&lastEditedDate=1498746490000)
A Warren woman who says she received death threats after signing up to a dating website may have been the intended pawn in a scam to illegally collect Ohio jobless benefits, according to police.
The 31-year-old Tod Avenue woman told police she was receiving death threats from an unknown person online and she is scared.
The woman recently joined the “Sugar Daddies” website, which according to the police report connects women with wealthy men that can financially take care of the women they date.
The woman says she was contacted online by someone claiming to be a wealthy 42-year-old businessman from Austin, Texas who offered to give her money.
The person online told the woman to open a bank account and send the account number to him so he could send her money.
After seeking a pending $489 deposit from the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services in the new account, she said she received a message telling her to send $389 back to the online contact. She was told she could keep $100.
When the woman replied that she felt “weird” withdrawing money from an Ohio Jobs and Family Services deposit, the suspect told her that the deposit wasn't actually from Ohio Jobs and Family Services, but from his business account.
After refusing to withdraw the money, the woman canceled the account.
That is when the suspect began to threaten her life, according to the woman who told police she is worried that he would harm her.
Police told the woman that the Ohio Jobs and Family Services deposit was indeed unemployment money and that the scammer used someone’s personal information and signed them up for unemployment in Ohio.
The scammer needed a bank account in which to deposit the unemployment funds so the scam would not come back to them.
Police told the woman to contact Ohio Jobs and Family Services. The woman said she called them earlier but did not get an answer.