The cold wintry months sandwiched between Christmas and Valentine’s Day can feel like a great time to build new relationships. But it’s also high time for romance scams. These cruel tricks prey on our longing for connection and can leave us with emotional and financial trauma. Here’s some information about these scams, why they are so effective, and what you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones.
Understanding romance scams
Romance scams involve fraudsters who build deceitful relationships. The goal? To manipulate you into sending them money. This might be for personal financial gain, or as part of a larger organisation to fund criminal activity.
These scammers can pose as strangers or claim to be friends of friends, aiming to build a level of trust. They may even impersonate famous people, building elaborate stories of fame-induced loneliness to exploit people seeking companionship.
How scams can start
While they could start through any online connection, romance scammers want to be confident that they can quickly strike up a conversation and connect with you. That’s why they usually target dating websites and apps.
If they're masquerading as celebrities, scammers might venture into online fan pages and forums, or connect with you through fake social profiles, hoping you'll fall for their stories.
Along with social media platforms and forums, impersonators often also reach out by text message. To do this they illegally buy large lists of phone numbers and send bulk messages to see who responds. They claim to have sent it accidentally to the wrong number, and once you tell them you’re not who they expected, they strike up a conversation.
How the scams unravel
After the scammer has made contact, they want to gain your trust. They might approach you as a friend quickly sharing intimate or personal details that make you feel special.
There’s usually an escalation to romantic conversation at some point, if it wasn’t there from the start, and this will likely move quickly. A romance scammer can rapidly declare their love to you, this is known as ‘love bombing’. It’s when someone uses an excessive display of affection, attention, and admiration aimed at overwhelming you emotionally to gain control.
Other common tactics include using generic pet names in messages – this allows scammers to easily send the same messages to multiple people, without tripping over names.
You may never meet a scammer face-to-face or speak on the phone, but some fraudsters still manage to talk or meet with people without breaking their cover.
The heart of the scam
Once trust is built, the scam reaches its peak – the requests for money. Timing varies; it could come after days, or weeks. The reasons also vary, convincingly, shaped by the fabricated stories they’ve shared. They might present themselves in peril, and frame you as a saviour if you provide financial support.
Posing as a celebrity, they might reference genuine hardships the person they’re pretending to be supposedly faces. Alternatively, they could tempt you with investment opportunities under the guise of partnership and mutual trust.
These scenarios tug at your emotions, questioning your love and loyalty if you hesitate to send money. The initial payment often leads to more requests, with no clear ending until you stop.
The science: why romance scams work
These scams play into our natural need for social connections and emotional fulfilment.
Love and positive reinforcement release two neurotransmitters and hormones – dopamine and oxytocin. They both play an important role in determining our mood, behaviours and psychological process. Combined, these feelings can cloud critical thinking and increase trust, making it easier for fraudsters to manipulate you.
When the requests for money come in, and you believe the person you love may be in trouble, your brain’s stress response kicks in. The part of your brain responsible for spotting and responding to threats (the amygdala) gets fired up, and triggers the release of stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol). When this happens, the part of your brain in control of logical thinking takes a back seat, making it harder to assess the situation critically.
This is why, sometimes just moments after responding urgently to a scam email, you often realise it was a mistake. Your brain's initial panic blocked clear thinking, and only once you resolved the problem and your nervous system has calmed down can you see the red flags. With romance scams, you don’t get a chance to step back and look objectively as you're emotionally invested in the situation, and that can make them so hard to spot.
Protecting yourself against romance scams
Here are some ways to protect yourself from falling into the trap of romance scams:
Set expectations: if you're looking for a real-life connection and express a desire to meet face to face, be cautious of people who consistently find ways to avoid meeting you.
Think about what’s normal for you: scammers will invest time in making you feel special. Think about whether falling for someone online in just a few weeks is your normal way of connecting, and be mindful if it feels out of character.
Look after your money: if someone is putting you under pressure to give them money, ask yourself “do I really want to be with someone like this?”
Talk to friends or family: the red flags seem obvious on paper, but when you’re living with the emotional connection and potential of love, it’s easy to miss them. Talk to people not emotionally invested and see if they have any concerns about new relationships.
If you think you’ve been targeted by a romance scam contact your bank. We’ll always do our best to help you. You can also report it to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or via actionfraud.police.uk