North Texas woman loses thousands of dollars in Frankie Beverly romance scam
FOREST HILL — A Forest Hill woman is now missing thousands of dollars after falling victim to a scammer who posed as her favorite singer, Frankie Beverly. Linda Moore-Evans tells CBS News Texas the scam was so believable, that she is hoping no other North Texan falls victim.
"I get up in the morning and I listen to Frankie Beverly. I go back and take a nap and I put on Frankie Beverly. I get on Facebook, and I see Frankie Beverly," she said.
Evans calls herself a Beverly "superfan." She said she knows every song and has posters of the singer all over her room. So, when she got a message from a Facebook account claiming to be Beverly back in December, she was more pleasantly surprised than suspicious.
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"I asked the person, 'How do I know that this is you?' And he sent a picture. But, it was still an imposter and I didn't know it," Evans explained.
She said she had been speaking to that fake account through April. The scammer sent her pictures and AI-generated voice messages and even sent her a marriage proposal. The scammer eventually asked Evans to send them money for "Beverly" to do a personal meet-and-greet with Evans and her elderly mother in Texas.
She ended up giving the scammer thousands of dollars with the promise that she would get the money back. She then received an email from Beverly's real media team that there was a scam going around, preying on his biggest fans.
"My heart was broken," she said. "I was shattered. I cried and cried and cried."
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Evans is not alone in being a scam victim. According to the CBS News Texas I-Team, Texas residents reported more than 46,000 imposter scams in 2023, making it the No. 1 type of fraud reported.
Beverly's media team sent CBS News Texas a statement:
"Frankie Beverly and Maze, it's management and entire organization have been vigilantly working to put a stop to the cyber-thieves who have targeted Frankie Beverly, his social media accounts and Frankie Beverly fans and our extended Maze family.
We were notified by a fan that they had been approached on social media by scammers impersonating Mr. Beverly and his staff, including via AI voice impersonations. We have launched an internal investigation and uncovered several cloned social media accounts on Facebook including Facebook groups.
The scammers are interacting with fans through direct messages and instant messages and asking them to purchase fake memberships and to send money for other non-existent perks such as private meet and greets, dinners, backstage access and personal shoutouts.
We have notified our fans via our social media accounts and emails warning them of this predatory scheme and advising them not to engage, immediately notify us of any such activity and to contact local authorities if anyone claiming to be affiliated with Frankie Beverly asks them for money, offers memberships or otherwise purports to be him. We are in contact with Facebook, state and federal authorities to uncover the source of these activities and stop the criminals from targeting Mr. Beverly's fans.
Mr. Beverly and the entire Maze organization are horrified by such deceitful actions taken by the scammers against Mr. Beverly and his devoted fans and we extend our sincerest regret to anyone who has fallen victim."
Evans said she's still Beverly's No. 1 fan and hopes her story is a warning to others.
"He's not the one responsible for this," she said. "I didn't want to put his name out there. But if I don't, it's going to get worse. Somebody is going to get hurt. Somebody is going to lose everything they have."
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CBS News Texas asked Beverly's team if they are aware of how many victims have fallen for the scam, but the team could not give that information.
