Romance scams
Scammers fabricate online identities, build trust over weeks or months, then manufacture financial crises requiring urgent money transfers. Victims are selected for emotional vulnerability and often lose median amounts of $2,000, with some losing their entire savings.
What we know
Romance scammers invest significant time in their victims. They typically create profiles on dating apps or contact targets through social media, often using stolen photographs of attractive strangers. They engage in daily communication, build emotional rapport and sometimes romantic attachment over weeks or months, and carefully avoid any in-person meeting. Common cover stories include military deployment overseas, working on an oil rig, being a doctor or engineer on an international project, or other circumstances that plausibly prevent meeting in person.
Once trust is established, the scammer engineers a financial crisis: a medical emergency, legal trouble, a customs fee to release a package, an investment opportunity that requires seed money, or a travel expense to finally visit the victim. They insist on payment methods that are difficult to trace or reverse: wire transfers, cryptocurrency, gift cards, payment apps, or cash. When the victim sends money, the crisis continues and new requests follow. Some variants involve cryptocurrency investment fraud ('pig butchering') where the scammer directs victims to fake investment platforms.
The FTC recorded over 64,000 romance scam reports in 2023 with total losses of $1.14 billion, a median loss of $2,000 per victim. People of all ages are targeted, but older adults face the highest individual losses. Warning signs include unwillingness to meet in person or video chat with face visible, requests for money in any form, and declarations of love unusually early in the relationship.
Common claims
- Romance scams only target lonely or naive peopleFalse - scammers use psychological manipulation that can affect anyone
- If someone video chats with me, they must be realUnreliable - deepfake video technology can be used in scams
- Romance scams always involve obvious red flagsFalse - sophisticated scammers invest months building credible relationships