Romance scam

Romance scammers create personal profiles using stolen photographs of attractive people for the purpose of asking others to contact them. This is often known as catfishing. Often photos of unknown actresses or models will be used to lure the victim into believing they are talking to that person. US military members are also impersonated, as pretending to serve in the military explains why the scammer is not available for an in-person meeting.

Because the scammers often look nothing like the photos they send to the victims, the scammers rarely meet the victims face to face or even in a video call. They deceive their intended victims by making plausible-sounding excuses about their unwillingness to show their faces, such as by saying that they cannot meet yet because they are temporarily traveling or have a broken web camera.[4]

Scammers are very adept at knowing how to "play" their victims – sending love poems, sex games in emails, building up a "loving relationship" with many promises of "one day we will be married".

Communications are exchanged between the scammer and victim over a period of time until the scammer feels they have connected with the victim enough to ask for money. Scammers prey on the victims' false sense of a relationship to lure them into sending money.

These requests may be for gas money, bus or airplane tickets to visit the victim, medical or education expenses. There is usually the promise the scammer will one day join the victim in the victim's home.

Victims may be invited to travel to the scammer's country; in some cases the victims arrive with asked-for gift money for family members or bribes for corrupt officials, only to be beaten and robbed or murdered.[5]

The scam usually ends when the victim realizes they are being scammed or stops sending money.

Criminal networks defraud lonely people around the world with false promises of love and romance.[6] Scammers post profiles on dating websites, non-dating social media accounts, classified sites and even online forums to search for new victims.[7][4] The scammer usually attempts to obtain a more private method of communication, such as an email or phone number to build trust with the victim.[8][4]

Because the scammers are working in groups, someone in the group can be online and available to send e-mail or text messages to the victim at any hour.[4] The rotation between different scammers, all claiming to be the same person, is difficult to detect in text-based messages, whereas it would be obvious if a different person showed up for a face-to-face meeting or in a video or telephone call.

In 2016, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation received reports of more than US $220 million being lost by victims of relationship scams.[9] This was approximately seven times what was stolen through phishing scams and almost 100 times the reported losses from ransomware attacks.[9] According to FBI IC3 statistics, the crime has been at an alarming rise. Monetary loss in the United States rose from $211 million to $475 million from 2017 to 2019.[10][11] Number of cases rose from 15,372 to 19,473 in only two years.

According to the Australian government,[12] the crime has also been in the rise in that country. Monetary loss in Australia rose from $20.5 million to $28.6 million from 2017 to 2019. SCAMwatch,[13] a website run by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), provides information about how to recognise, avoid and report scams.[14][3] In 2005, the ACCC and other agencies formed the Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce (ACFT). The site provides information about current scams, warning signs and staying safe online.

Gender and age demographics of victims of online romance scams in 2011

Older people are often targeted, because they are more likely to have assets, such as retirement funds or homes, that can be stolen.[4]

Sensitive people are more vulnerable to online dating scams, based on a study conducted by the British Psychological Society. Per their results, sensitive and less emotionally intelligent people are more likely to be vulnerable to online dating scams.[15][16]

Narratives used to extract money from the victims of romance scams include the following:

• Saying their boss has paid them in postal money orders, and asks the victim to cash the forged money orders and then wire money to the scammer. The bank eventually reverts the money order cash but not the wire transfer.[17]
• Saying they need the victim to send money to pay for a passport.[17]
• Saying they require money for flights to the victim's country because they are being held back in their home country by a family member or spouse.[18] In all cases the scammer never comes, or instead says that they are being held against their will by immigration authorities who are demanding bribes.[19]
• Saying they have had gold bars or other valuables seized by customs and need to pay taxes to before they can recover their items and join the victim in their country.[20]
• Saying they need money to join the victim in his or her country, after meeting on an online dating site.[5][20]
• Saying they are being held against their will for failure to pay a bill.[5][18]
• Saying they need money to pay hospital bills.[5][18]
• Saying they need the money to pay their phone bills in order to continue communicating with the victim.
• Saying they need the money for their own or their parents' urgent medical treatment.[5]
• The scammer actually is employed directly or indirectly by a website, with a share of the victim's member or usage fees passed on to the scammer.[21]

• The Swedish film Raskenstam (1983; alternate title, Casanova of Sweden) is a fictionalized romantic comedy based on the true story of Swedish undertaker Gustaf Raskenstam,[32] who seduced over 100 women and convinced many to support his various projects financially.[33] He usually used newspaper contact ads, often with the headline "Sun and spring", which has become an idiomatic expression in Sweden. The film was directed by Gunnar Hellström, written by Hellström and Birgitta Stenberg, and executive produced by Hellström and Brian Wikström.[34]
• Several films and television episodes depict the story of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, the American serial killer couple known as "The Lonely Hearts Killers", who are believed to have killed as many as 20 women during their murderous spree between 1947 and 1949. The pair met their unsuspecting victims through lonely hearts ads.
  • The Honeymoon Killers (1969 film)
  • Deep Crimson (1996 film)
  • Lonely Hearts (2006 film)
  • Cold Case: "Lonely Hearts" (season 4, episode 9), airdate 19 November 2006
  • Alleluia (2014 film)
• The 2008 web series SPAMasterpiece Theater featured an episode "Love Song of Kseniya" that centered on a romance scam email spam read by website Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin.[35]
• One of the characters in the novel and miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers has a mental breakdown after falling in love with, and subsequently losing thousands to, a perpetrator of a romance scam.

• 419 scams
• Advance-fee scam
• Badger game
• Catfishing
• Scam baiting

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Lentis/Online Dating Scams

• Phishing at Curlie

• Catfished's channel on YouTube. Romance scam victims come to a team of investigators to determine whether their romantic partner is genuine, or a scammer. The investigators determine the real source of the pictures the scammer used, geographical location and other information, to help give the victim clarity.