A woman from Massachusetts thought she had met the perfect man online but her dream partner quickly turned into a nightmare after he turned out to be nothing more than a scam artist.
Mom-of-four, Sandra Eckenreiter, 54, from Fairhaven, decided to try internet dating for the very first time after her husband passed away.
She met the man, who called himself Sergeant Hill, on Match.com.
Sandra Eckenreiter, 54, from Massachusetts, thought she had met the perfect man online
The man appeared to in the military, but he raised suspicions when he asked for cash
Hill, told her that he was a soldier stationed in Kabul. From time to time he would send her pictures of himself in uniform, holding an American flag or perhaps relaxing by the pool.
Eckenreiter believed she might be falling in love with the kind-hearted, upstanding man until one day, out of the blue, he asked her to send money.
'I asked, "What do you need money for? You work in the military, you should be getting paid,"' she told NBC.
Something told Eckenreiter that everything was not as it seemed. She began to question her judgement and decided to do a reverse picture search of Sergeant Hill's picture online.
Eckenreiter said there were other red flag that should have alerted her to the possible scam including the fact the pair never spoke on the phone or used Facetime. He only texted, right
'What starts popping up is he's a news correspondent, he's a former tennis player,' Eckenreiter explained. 'I said, "Oh my, this guy is right here in New York."'
There were plenty of other red flags too: no phone calls between the couple and never any Facetime either.
'"I can't talk to you while I'm on a mission," he would say,' she recalled.
Eckenreiter decided to contact NBC because the picture of her sergeant was none other than NBC New York's sports reporter 37-year-old Harry Cicma.
'I thought it was really important for Cicma to know,
