How to spot a romance scam
Did you know that £92 million has been lost to romance fraud in the last year? Dating scams are on the rise and family members are being urged by Action Fraud to help protect their loved ones.
The scammers who run these frauds are ruthless, and look to take advantage of people looking for a relationship. Online dating has increased quickly due to the pandemic pushing more people online and isolating others.
Often, the scammers find their victims at a vulnerable time in their lives, such as after a recent break-up or divorce or at a time of the year where family-time and interaction with loved-ones increases. According to Action Fraud, daters who strike up online relationships between Christmas and Valentines Day tend to be the most susceptible to romance fraud, with them reporting a large spike in fraud reports during this time. Remember that the fraudsters will always look to take advantage of this and quickly move to bring their potential victim under their spell. Before long, the conversations turn away from each other's lives and towards requests for money.
Watch out for this latest romance scam tactic
Recently, we have seen an increase in romance scams where the fraudster builds a relationship on a dating website and then uses that trust to encourage the victim into investments and then ‘helps’ them to invest.
Often, the investment will be in things such as cryptocurrency and they will typically offer to show you how to do it by taking control of your device through a ‘remote access’ application. This has become extremely common and any request for ‘remote access’ should be a solid red-flag that the person's intentions are dishonest. They will typically give you a login to a portal that displays your balance, but little does the victim know that the portal is a fake and the scammer can insert figures and manipulate prices. It later emerges that the investment was a scam, leaving the victim feeling doubly betrayed and out of pocket.
In this post, we give you the key things to look out for to help you spot a romance scam:
Do the pictures add up? Upload any pictures into a Google reverse image search and see if it is one they stole off the web
They quickly move the conversation off the dating website into Whatsapp or other communication channels. Romance scammers don’t want to spend too much time on the platforms other than to trap potential victims
They try to build a bond extremely quickly. The goal of the romance scammer is to build the relationship as quickly as possible so they can ask you for money. If it feels rushed, or they quickly say ‘they have never felt like this before’ it might mean that the person has dishonest intentions
They avoid video calls or the connection / video quality makes it impossible for you to properly see their face
They make plans to meet you but always cancel with an excuse such as being detained at the airport
They ask for money, often for things such as hospital bills, family emergencies or they talk about their money troubles hoping you will help
They claim to have jobs that keep them out of the country a lot. For example, in the army or working on an oil rig
They ask to take control of your devices using remote access software. This is a huge red-flag as no legitimate investment company or partner should be controlling your devices so if they say they can help and ask you to download software, run a mile!
There are also steps you and friends can take to protect yourself from becoming a target of romance fraudsters:
Lock down your social media and be wary of friends requests from people you don't know
Speak to your friends and family about yours/their online dating and look out for any changes in behaviour
Read the warning signs in this guide and consider whether it applies to you or your friends and family
Most of all, if you have fallen victim, remember that romance scammers are some of the most experienced, skilled and ruthless out there and it is not your fault. You can take action to get your money back from a bank transfer, and we can help you.
Can I get my money back from a bank transfer?
If you’ve lost money to a bank transfer scam, Refundee may be able to help you get your money back from your bank. Refundee can manage your case for you, as an FCA regulated claims management company. If you’d like us to do this for you, start the process by filling out our scam refund claim form. Our fee is 15% plus VAT on anything that we get back, and we don't charge anything if we are not successful. For larger cases, the fee is subject to a maximum of £10k plus VAT per case. Find out more about our fees here.
Remember you don’t need to use a company like Refundee, you could work your case yourself for free! If you’d like to get a refund yourself, you can do this by following our bank transfer refund guide.
