# Crypto-romance scam costs North Texas man almost everything: "I took out my 401k"

## by Kelsy Mittauer, Andrea Lucia

**Updated on: March 5, 2025 / 6:59 PM CST / CBS Texas**

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It started with a "smile." Gary Dalrymple said he had just signed up for the dating site Silver Singles when a beautiful blonde woman named Gianna responded to the emoji he sent to her account.



He invited CBS News Texas and the Better Business Bureau to his home to tell the rest of the story.

Dalrymple said the pair began chatting, and soon they were trading texts all day long.

"It was about family, 'what are your goals, what do you want to do, where have you been,'" he recalled. "And we talked every day from 7:30, 8 in the morning - we texted until 9, 10 at night."

They had been talking for about two weeks when Dalrymple said Gianna asked him if he knew anything about cryptocurrency. He said she did not pressure him into making investments but showed him how and left it up to him.

"So anyway, this went on for a couple months, and we started making money," Dalrymple said. "And she said, 'can you borrow more money and get into this,' so I took out my 401k."

Monica Horton with the Better Business Bureau asked Dalrymple if he told any friends or family about the relationship or the investing.

"No, nobody else knows I'm even doing this," he said.

When he showed us the site where he watched his money grow, Horton said it was fake.

"This is kind of a blend of a romance and an investment scam," she said.

A recent BBB study found that more scammers are striking up relationships online to lure people into fake investing opportunities. Nearly half of all investment scams reported to the BBB involve cryptocurrency.

A new BBB study found that investment scams were the number one most reported scam last year. In one in four cases, the scammer spent time building a romance or friendship with the victim. According to the study, investment and romance scams top the charts for monetary loss.

It's not always romantic, though. Horton said that sometimes the scammer starts a platonic friendship before mentioning crypto possibilities.

"The crooks like to use crypto because it's untraceable," said Horton. "Just like handing cash to a stranger."

Dalrymple still spoke of Gianna as if she were real, though Horton believes it was likely a sophisticated group of scammers.

"More than likely, it's a person who works for a very involved crime ring," said Horton. "They are probably operating 20 to 25 different personas, communicating with 20 to 25 folks like Gary."

She had a warning for him: the scammers will likely return.

"You are now on a list of someone who gave them money, and they are going to share that information," said Horton. "These fraudsters are going to continue to try and trick you and get more and more money."

Now, Dalrymple says he sees the red flags. Gianna never wanted to speak on the phone, and the one time they video chatted, he could only see her hair.

Soon after they began chatting, Gianna convinced him to communicate outside the dating site, using only the Telegram app. Horton said in doing so, it avoided protections built into the dating site, and it gave the scammers direct access to Dalrymple in case Gianna's account was flagged.

Dalrymple also learned how to reverse search an image, which is how he discovered Gianna's photo actually belonged to a woman with a large following on an online streaming platform.

Dalrymple said he's out about half a million dollars. He's now selling his home and plans to come out of retirement and get a job to help pay down his debts.

"It's kind of tough," he said. "It's like, why me? Why didn't I catch this? Why was I so shortsighted?"

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