A 55-year-old grandmother from Perth was conned online and lost almost $100,000 just when she thought she could take another chance at love and romance.

"I was lonely and vulnerable at the time," Katie Stuart said. She brought her story to the public today, just in time for Commerce Minister Simon O'Brien launching of a revamped Consumer Protection WA ScamNet Web site.

"I couldn't wait to get home and get on the internet," Stuart said as she described her online affair. She started online dating in 2009, eight months after a divorce. She met a man with whom she felt comfortable, and soon she was in love. This man asked Stuart to be part of a joint venture which involved a house renovation in Florida. As she has taken on roles in real estate projects in the past, Stuart was immediately interested in the man's proposal.

"I lost everything," she said. Stuart sent money to the man via Western Union, a few thousand dollars at a time. To raise funds, Stuart redrew money from her mortgage and sold her car and jewellery. She acknowledged she may have seemed gullible, but insisted everything seemed official and legitimate. She even had paperwork that looked authentic.

Stuart got more clues on the situation she has put herself in when she started to receive electronic goods which had been sent to her and had been bought by fake credit cards bearing her name. After calling the police and finding out the man's identity online, Stuart realized that she was not the only one who has been scammed by his online romance. Stuart later learned that the man was a scammer based in Nigeria, and not a UK-based engineer as she had been made to believe.

Asked for simple signs that she was dealing with a shady online personality, Stuart recalled that there were subtle signs situation was not right. "His camera on his computer was never working," she said.

Stuart regrets having supported the man's scam by making an online profile for one of the man's so called friends. Stuart said her revelations are meant to discourage people from building relationships online. "I hope nobody has to go through it," she said

Meanwhile, O'Brien reported that scam-related phone queries to Consumer Protection had doubled in the past year to about 900 calls per month, noting that in the last financial year the reported financial loss to victims had been over $5million.

Last year another woman from Perth lost $600,000 to a conman she met on an online dating website.

Speaking at the launching of a revamped Consumer Protection WA ScamNet Web site, O'Brien said people can use WA ScamNet to research phone calls, emails or letters to see if they had scammed anyone in the past. He added the Web site design is now far more interactive for public use.