A catfishing scam using photos of The Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb has tricked a woman into sending at least $11,000 of her retirement savings to a con artist.
The story was covered in an episode of the YouTube series Catfished and follows the typical pattern that online romance scams take. An older individual (in this case, a woman named Wanda), receives a message from a social media account claiming to be romantically interested in them, and then is convinced to wire money through odd methods for even odder reasons.
In this case, the fake Gibb claimed that he was covertly divorcing his wife, Linda Grey, and had no access to his own money. Thus, he wanted to use Wanda’s cash — and an influx of “donations” coming in from random “fans” — to cover the down payment for a new house, which he and Wanda would move into together once all the legal hullabaloo over the divorce settled. When asked why he never spoke with Wanda on the phone or FaceTime, the fake Gibb claimed that he had been “blackmailed” in the past.
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Of course, the account sending Wanda the messages did not belong to the Grammy Award-winning, Platinum-selling Gibb, but rather, a con artist who, according to Catfished, appeared to be operating out of Lagos, Nigeria. Utilizing an additional fake account claiming to be Gibb’s real estate agent, money from the “fans” was randomly transferred to Wanda, who sent it onward in a seemingly unknowing act of criminal laundering. Now, the information from Wanda is being compiled for a police report, which will also be turned over to the Nigerian government’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
It appears Wanda is not the only victim of such a scam. In August, Gibb’s son Stephen Gibb posted the following message on his official Facebook page: “I am posting on his behalf today as It seems there are several profiles pretending to be Dad on Facebook and other social media platforms. Please report and block these scam artists to the platform. This is the only official account for Barry Gibb on Facebook. I hope this bring some clarity to things.”
When Wanda sent the fake Gibb a screenshot of Stephen’s message and asked why the account had been lying to her, the fake Gibb responded: “Babe, doubts ruins [sic] a relationship” According to the episode of Catfished, Wanda has since blocked all the fake accounts she was in contact with, and has changed her banking information. Watch the full episode below.
Meanwhile, the real-life Gibb has been laying relatively low since 2021, when he shared a country album featuring “Words,” a duet with Dolly Parton. Last month, he and Grey celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary.
