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31st January 2025
02:39pm GMT
An Irish woman has revealed how she was conned out of her pension savings by fraudsters impersonating Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.
Speaking to RTE's Drivetime, the Dubliner in her 40s - given the name Sinead to protect her identity - said that scammers used artificial intelligence to make her believe she was in a romantic relationship with the singer - duping her for over €25,000.
RTE reporter Barry Lenihan said that Sinead's claims are corroborated by "a wealth of documents, images and screengrabs".
The woman - who has resided at times in Northern Ireland - is now calling for Republic of Ireland banking laws to be urgently upgraded to protect victims of such fraud.
Sinead's experience with the fake Chris Martin began in early 2021 during the Covid pandemic.
"I responded to a post that Coldplay management put up on Coldplay's Twitter. I got a contact from a man purporting to be Chris Martin," she explained.
"He sent me a message via Twitter with images of Chris Martin and Chris Martin's name on the account.
"And then he asked me for my phone number and I was quite dazzled. I didn’t believe it was true initially, but then I was like: 'Could it be?'’
"I gave my number, and he contacted me via WhatsApp and Facebook with fake Chris Martin accounts as well. And then, he contacted me on Skype."
The fake Chris Martin told Sinead not to talk to other people about their relationship.
She told Drivetime: "He was like: 'Keep this to ourselves, you know, I can’t really go public because I’m a big name star. I don't want you to talk to anyone about me talking to you. I want you to keep it secret.'
"And then he moved to Skype, and he was manipulating me and kind of started grooming me a bit more and more.
"He built up trust, and he was very smooth. He’d be humorous in his conversation. He’d be kind with his words towards me. But he did say initially: 'Don’t tell anyone that you’re talking to me.'"
While it started friendly, eventually their interactions became more romantic.
"He started saying: 'I’m interested in you. I like what I see on your pictures.' He got to the point where he started asking me for flight money to come to Ireland to visit me.
"I was taken in by it all. I ended up giving him a large sum of money towards flight costs because he said he was having problems."
At one point, Sinead pointed out that Martin had a girlfriend, to which the scammer responded: “No, that’s fake. It’s all for showbiz."
Explaining further, she said: "He started sending me images of the real Chris Martin, but they were like direct headshots of him looking into the camera, images of orphans that he said he was looking after.
"He sent me a passport for Chris Martin. When you look closely at it, it was a German background but it had all Chris Martin's information on the passport. He sent me a driver's licence for Chris Martin.
"I got a phone call from him. In the video, there was Phil Harvey, who is his manager, Guy Berryman, who is another member of the band. They were talking to me. The video was playing in Skype and they were talking to me. Now it was muffled, but it was enough to deceive me.
"He would contact me from 7am until 12am, all day long, talking and messaging me and being romantic.
"I sent personal images. So, just photographs of myself. Back and forth. It was going on for about four months."
It was at this point, the scammers moved to extract money from Sinead - asking for increasing amounts.
Along with the supposed plane ticket, another excuse for money requests was to assist an orphanage Chris Martin had supposedly established.
Reporter @BarryLenihan speaks to a Dublin woman on how she was conned out of her pension savings by fraudsters impersonating Coldplay's Chris Martin.
— Drivetime RTE (@drivetimerte) January 30, 2025
Using AI, scammers made the woman believe she was in a romantic relationship with the singer and duped her out of €25k.
Eventually, the impersonator asked for a loan of €22,000 saying he was unable to access funds during the Covid pandemic.
Sinead agreed and lost in total over €25,000. This was money from her pension account in Dublin that she had saved for five years.
It was only after she told her brother the story, that she realised it was a scam.
"I was really devastated. It was such a large amount of money. Initially, I was so embarrassed. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was really depressed," Sinead said about discovering the truth.
"I was like, who am I actually talking to? I've been romantic with this guy. I've been soft and I've been kind and I've been very gentle. And I've been completely manipulated and duped… I felt really stupid. I cried a lot."
A police investigation was subsequently mounted involving the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau and the PSNI before the case was later escalated to Interpol and the FBI.
Victims in these cases, however, rarely recover any of their losses due to the international complexities involved and the multiple layers of deception that these scammers deploy.
To make the payments to the scammers, Sinead transferred money from bank accounts based in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
On today's show: @SarahAMcInerney
— Drivetime RTE (@drivetimerte) January 30, 2025
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According to Drivetime, her bank in Northern Ireland, HSBC, confirmed that the Dubliner was a victim of authorised push payment fraud.
This is when someone is tricked into sending money to a fraudster posing as a genuine payee. As such, Sinead was given a reimbursement.
That said, different rules around APP fraud (authorized push payment fraud) exist in the Republic and her bank south of the border, Ulster Bank, refused to refund any money.
An inquiry by the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman sided with the bank.
Speaking about how she feels now, Sinead said: "I’m still recovering three years on… I have to go through the courts and everything now with this because the bank is being so difficult in Dublin.
"I have hope that I’ll get the money back, but I just don’t know what way it’ll work out.
"I’m fine, I’m trying to be positive. I’ve moved on. It’s a lot of money, but he didn’t harm me.
"I deleted all my social media. I don’t take phone calls from anyone randomly. I have caller ID on."
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