Ernie Kiss acted out of love, but it came back to bite him.
The Steinbach man, who spent his career in aviation, has had his life savings of more than $185,000 swiped by a scammer.
Kiss, 62, said that instead of settling into retirement, he has go back to work full time.
Greg Vandermeulen / The Carillon Ernie Kiss lost $185,000 in an online scam.
“I’m going to be working until the day of my funeral,” he said Thursday. “I will work in the morning and take the afternoon off for my funeral. It is embarrassing. This bit hard, but I don’t want this to happen to anyone else which is why I’m talking about it.”
He said he was gullible to be taken by such a clever con artist.
The retired pilot and aviation mechanic said that out of the blue last April he received a message on Instagram from a woman who claimed to be a plastic surgeon in California who wanted to learn how to fly.
He said they developed a friendship through video and phone calls, but when he said he would fly down to see her, she twice gave last-minute excuses for cancelling the trip.
Kiss said the woman always ended their calls by saying she needed to check her “artificial intelligence box” and it wasn’t until she had said that a few times that he asked her about it. That’s when she advised him to invest in it because it gave great returns.
At first, he put in about $1,500 to $2,000 and found that not only could he see his investment growing, he was able to take out a bit of money.
“They make it look so real,” said Kiss. “So then you put in all your money. She was even saying I should get short-term loans from family and friends, but not tell them it was to invest in AI. You would just pay them back with interest.
“She knew I would never be able to do that — what type of person says that?”
After a friend convinced him he was being scammed, Kiss said he contacted the woman to confront her — and he hasn’t been able to reach her since.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre has reported romance scams victimized eight Manitobans out of more than $177,000 in the first three months of this year while 48 Manitobans lost a total of more than $1.6 million in 2023.
Const. Ricky Perkins, of the Manitoba RCMP financial crimes unit, said Kiss’s story is familiar.
“You can change the name (of the victim) and the scam is almost the same,” said Perkins.
“They are encouraged to invest more money. You plan a trip to meet, then an excuse happens. This is one of the most common things we see.”
Perkins said the scammers prey on people’s vulnerabilities.
“You are told to invest more and more and more, but it is all fictitious,” he said. “The money just goes into the bank of the bad people.
“It is so disheartening at times. We just see whole stories of life savings lost. Sometimes it is $185,000, sometimes $50,000, sometimes a million. It is just trust by good people.”
Perkins said the best way to stop scammers from being successful is by educating Manitobans about the many scams being perpetrated by criminals.
“Solving it is much more difficult than preventing it,” he said.
Perkins said anyone who has been scammed should report it to their local police department.
He said cases reported to the RCMP might be dealt with by the local detachment, or could be forwarded to his unit.
He said victims should also report it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (antifraudcentre.ca or 1-888-495-8501).
Kiss said he plans to file a report with RCMP and the anti-fraud centre.
In the meantime, he is already loading boxes at his Steinbach residence. He is moving to Saskatchewan next week to begin a full-time job servicing planes for a flight school.
“It’s not the way I thought my retirement years would be,” he said.
“I know, as long as I’m still healthy, I will be working. I know at some point my body and health will make me slow down, but for now, I’ve got to go back to work. I have no choice.”
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Kevin Rollason
Reporter
Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.
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