A TINDER con artist who duped a woman out of £3000 changed his name and scammed a second woman in England...just two weeks after being unmasked by the Glasgow Times.
We told in October how sleazy Christopher Harkins put his date Laura through months of hell after she paid him for a holiday that turned out not to exist.
Laura - whose name we changed to protect her identity - paid Harkins the cash after he promised her a dream trip to Greece.
Now another victim of his dirty tricks has come forward.
Elaine, whose name we have also changed, met Harkins on Tinder at the beginning of November.
The 33-year-old, from Portsmouth, spoke to Harkins, who was calling himself Christopher Hawlins on the dating app, for two weeks before meeting him.
READ MORE: Victim urges women to beware of Glasgow Tinder conman
The Scottish scammer, who claimed he was living in Southampton for work, turned on the charm and, after two dates, had raised the idea of going on holiday.
Elaine transferred £1600 to Harkins’s bank account to pay for the trip.
Before long, just as he did with Laura, the con artist asked her for more money, trying to persuade her to take out a loan of £18,000 for him.
At one point he even persuaded Elaine to buy him a pair of trainers for £80.
She said: “He was really nice, his chat was good and he was just the type of guy that girls really go for.
“We spoke on the phone every day for two weeks before we met up and he wasn’t full on, he was nice and there were no alarm bells.”
Elaine and Harkins went on four dates in Southampton where he was staying in an AirBnB.
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As the plans for the holiday failed to materialise, Elaine became worried but kept talking to Harkins in the hope she could get her money back.
After finding our story online by searching for “Glasgow tinder scam”, Elaine confronted Harkins.
She said: “When I saw it, I hit the floor.
“I wanted to thank Laura for coming forward because without her I wouldn’t have known what he was capable of.
“I just thought, ‘You can say what you want to me, I’m not scared of you. Your words are meaningless.’”
In messages seen by the Glasgow Times, Harkins claims we invented the story about him, that he is suing the paper for defamation and that we will be taking the article down from our website.
This paper has not been contacted by any legal representatives of Christopher Harkins.
In messages to her he said: “Aw don’t tell me. The stupid story I was cleared of in all of five minutes of an interview.
“Think why I wasn’t charged u f***ing moron.
“I was cleared within two minutes and I have a case with them for defamation of character u f***ing idiot.
“Since when does a newspaper tell the truth about anything.
“Reported me to [the police] before contacting me???? Silly silly girl.”
Elaine told Harkins she would go to the police if he didn’t return her money but he claimed - exactly as he did with Laura - that his bank accounts had been frozen.
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She insisted on being given a refund, he started issuing her with threats, even, Elaine claims, having his friend call her to threaten her.
At another point he said his family member is ill and told Elaine to “have some sort of a heart”.
She said: “I kept talking to him as I didn’t want to anger him when he had my money but it soon became clear I wasn’t going to get it back.
“When I asked for it, he became angry and complained that I didn’t have his back.
“And when I said I had read the article about him he told me that he had a legal case against the press and the story was going to be taken down.
“He’s definitely got other people in on it though as a guy phoned me claiming to be his friend.”
Elaine has now reported him to Hampshire Police.
A spokesman for the force said: “I can confirm we are investigating a report of a fraud between November 11 and December 16.
“Enquiries are ongoing.”
Elaine said: “It’s not even about the money. I don’t care about the money now, I just want other girls to know about this so it doesn’t happen to them.
“It was no time at all before he was down in England doing the same thing that he had been doing in Glasgow.
“I will happily lose £1600 if I never have to speak to him again but I will never get over it if he is allowed to get away with doing this to any other girls.”
In October we told how Laura, 34, was promised a luxury holiday to Greek island Mykonos by Harkins.
She gave him £3247 before he then repeatedly tried to convince her to take out a bank loan for £12,000.
When we spoke to Harkins he told us that Laura had issued threats to his life and he was too afraid to meet her to return the money.
He then said the holiday was real and he had lost his share of the cost also.
Harkins also asked Laura if he could have a friend transfer “15 to 20 grand” to her bank account for her to lift out and give to him, deducting her £3000.
In another bizarre claim, Harkins said he had invested the £3000 to make £32,000, sending her a picture of a large bag of money.
With his story constantly changing, Harkins finally agreed to leave the cash in a chip shop on Glasgow’s South Side for her to collect.
The Glasgow Times went with Laura to collect the money and it was handed over.
Bizarrely, the chip shop owner claimed not to have ever heard of Christopher Harkins and claimed no money had changed hands in his shop - despite us having seen the transaction take place.
We contacted Harkins last night for comment but he declined to speak to us.
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