
Romance online scams: $139 million in cryptocurrencies lost in 2021
In 2021, the most money reported lost in romance scams in the U.S. was in cryptocurrencies, reaching as high as $139 million out of a total of $547 million of online romance scams, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission warns.
Valentine’s Day is only once per year, but the human quest for love and companionship is eternal, and the fraudsters tag along with the trends of each era. According to FTC, in 2021, approximately one out of four people in the U.S. sent $547 million to online romance scammers, close to double from the year before, as in 2020 the respective amount reported was $304 million. Most of them were targeted on a dating app, but social media was also a popular arena for scammers, as more than one third of the people who were lured to send money to an online romance scammer said that the contact was initiated via a private message on Facebook or Instagram.
Scammers often pretend they are successful cryptocurrency investors and lure people to send them money for fake investments in crypto; in other cases, scammers pretend they have a serious health or family issue to extort the money.
Another profitable field for scammers are the LGBTQ+ dating apps, going from romance scams to extortion: a scammer poses as a potential romantic partner on an LGBTQ+ dating app, quickly sends explicit photos, and asks for similar photos in return. If the victim sends photos, the blackmail begins. They threaten to share the conversation and photos with friends, family, or employer unless the victim pays — usually by gift card. To make their threats more credible, these scammers will trace the names of exactly who they plan to contact by screening the victim’s social media profile. The profit for them is even higher in cases where the victim has not come out as LGBTQ+.
When reading this, in broad daylight, most people think: ‘this would never happen to me’. And maybe they are right – but in most cases, it is much easier than people think to trust a specific person that are in contact with, think they have a bond. Maybe for Valentine’s Day, a good look at this world is Netflix’s latest release: ‘The Tinder Swindler’, on a fraudster who used dating apps to meet multiple women, then established lines of credit and loans in their names, ultimately leaving them holding the bills. It is estimated that he has managed to get close to $10 million…
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