Romance fraud
Romance Fraud is a type of fraud where people fall victim to individuals online, posing as a new and potential romantic partner, usually through an online dating website or app, but where in actual fact, this person is using a fake profile to form a relationship with the victim. The motivations behind this can be varied, but typically, financial extortion is the main motivating driver for these fraudsters.
There are numerous guises fraudsters will use to pose as potential romantic partners online, or actions they will take to try to obtain personal and/or financial information from you. Some examples of how these can be framed include:
- Fake illness or injury – where a scammer will pretend to be in a dire situation and ask for financial support to aid in their recovery),
- Posing investment opportunities for you and them to be able to “start afresh” in a prosperous manner,
- Sextortion – where a scammer has persuaded you to send sexually explicit imagery to them and then they use this as a form of blackmail and extortion, where the penalty is the public sharing of these images),
- Coming across as a relatively “normal” individual that is playing a long game of establishing trust before then looking to enact their scam.
