Hi Abbey
Welcome to Scamwarners.
I am sorry to hear you have lost money to a scammer, they are very good at what they do so dont feel bad, we have seen many times what they are capable of and we know you are not stupid.
If you could please post of some of the details of the scammer including email address and the early emails, these will be scripted and re-used time and again so searching on parts of the email should bring up other examples of the same scam.
Please also be aware of recovery scams, in these scams you may be told by a stranger that they can retrieve your money for you but there will be fees involved in order to have the money returned, of course, no money will ever be returned to you, it is just another scam, We have a section on recovery scams here
viewforum.php?f=14 please take a look through and be on the look out.
Also please be aware that you are likely to be targeted by a variety of new scams so please dont hesitate to ask if you are not sure.
In simple terms, if you need to send money to anybody who has contacted you, chances are it is a scam