Written By: Michelle Maneri, Contact Center Manager

Every year, experts ask that people watch out for romance scams around Valentine’s Day. As First New York Federal Credit Union’s Contact Center Manager, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve helped members avoid sending money to a romance scammer pretending to be a love interest.

Because Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, I want to go over how you can spot the different types of romance scams. This way you can avoid the emotional and financial distress of being involved in a scam. Let’s get started learning how you can leave romance scammers on read this Valentine’s Day and beyond!

What is a Romance Scam

A romance scam is when someone uses your emotions to trick you into sending them money. In particular, romance scammers target vulnerable people who are lonely or dealing with a breakup. They use their victim’s heartbreak to establish an emotional connection that will let them manipulate their victim into sending them money.

What are the Types of Romance Scams

Right now, a majority of romance scammers use online dating platforms or social media apps to contact their potential victims. Because of the physical distance, it’s much easier for them to trick their victims into believing their lies. In this section, we’ll cover the most popular online romance scams.

Online Dating Romance Scams:

This type of romance scam is one of the most popular. There are hundreds of dating sites and apps online, making it easy for romance scammers to create multiple fake profiles. These fake profiles are how scammers manipulate their victims into sending them money over time.

Online dating romance scams usually start out with the scammer waiting for people to match their fake profile. Or, they could initiate the conversation by saying you have a mutual friend or contact. From there, the scammer will try to groom their victims by making false promises or asking them about their personal lives.

Once the scammer has their victim hooked, it’s easy for them to get them to do what they ask. This could include sending them money, purchasing gift cards, and asking for personal information to gain access to their accounts.

Also, be on the lookout for fake dating sites. Yes, that’s right. Scammers will create their own fake dating sites to trick people into entering their personal information.

A good rule of thumb: Always verify the website that you’re using and try not to join any website that requires your sensitive information. The costs of trying to recover your identity aren’t worth it.

Facebook Romance Scams:

Facebook romance scams happen on the social media website Facebook. However, these scams can also happen on other social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok.

Social media scams may start out with random friend requests from people you don’t know. If your profile isn’t private, romance scammers can find out what’s been going on with your life and potentially your dating history. From there, they can find ways to manipulate you based on your profile.

Military Romance Scams:

Military romance scams (also known as romance military scams) are another incredibly popular dating scam. Romance scammers pretend to be U.S. soldiers, using names and likenesses of actual military members on their fake dating profiles.

According to the U.S. Army, “Victims may encounter these romance scammers on a legitimate dating website or social media platform, but they are not U.S. Soldiers. To perpetrate this scam, the scammers take on the online persona of a current or former U.S. Soldier, and then, using photographs of a Soldier from the internet, build a false identity to begin prowling the web for victims.”

It’s essential that you never send money to someone who claims to be a service member. It doesn’t matter if they’re trying to tell you that they need you to help pay for their flight home, medical bill, or any other supposed limitations on their military coverage.

Photo Scams:

A photo scam is when a scammer encourages their victim to send them their contact details in exchange for inappropriate photos or videos of the scammer. However, the victim will never receive these intimate photos or videos. Instead, the scammer will use the victim’s data for financial fraud.

Cryptocurrency Romance Scams:

Crypto romance scams are a new type of fraudulent activity that’s also referred to as “pig butchering.” It’s called that because “victims’ investment accounts are fattened up before draining, much like a pig before slaughter,” says Insider.

As gross as that sounds, it reinforces how dangerous this is since scammers combine romance with cryptocurrency and investment scams. These scammers promise their victims that they’ll double their investments if the victim sends them money to invest or trade cryptocurrency.  

Romance Scamming: Warning Signs

Knowing the warning signs of a romance scam can help protect you against losing money and identity theft. Here are the most common warning signs of a romance scam according to the FBI:

  • Quick attempts to contact you by email or message services instead of on the dating platform
  • Claims that the “love interest” (aka the scammer) is from the US
  • Claims that your meeting online was “fate” or “destiny”
  • The “love interest” (aka the scammer) is in a personal crisis or needs your help financially
  • Someone that asks for money, goods, gift cards, personal information, or financial assistance without meeting in person (Meeting in-person doesn’t mean going on a FaceTime date or video call date with the person. Those individuals can hire or pay other persons to impersonate them to get you to send their money.)
  • Someone that wants you to send money through online transfers or online banking platforms, like Venmo, where you can’t recover or trace the funds you sent

How to Protect Yourself from Romance Scammers

I know. Everything I told you can feel scary and like a lot of information. In spite of this, you’re now better prepared to prevent a romance scam from happening to you. Because I want you to feel confident in identifying a romance scam or any fraudulent attempt, here are five ways you can protect yourself from romance scams:

1: Send Money Online to Only Trustworthy Sources

Sending money online is extremely dangerous. Most of the time you can’t get that money back once you send it. The worst part is: The credit union, bank, or platform you used to send the money may not be able to help you retrieve or trace it.

So, you’ve just sent money to someone that you’ll never see or hear from again. It’s also incredibly hard to trace and prosecute that individual who has your hard-earned money.

Having the personal information of the person you’re in an “online relationship” with may not be enough to take legal action. This includes their phone number, email address, or profile picture. These cases are hard to prosecute legally and can cost you more money than you can win back.

My best advice: Never send money to untrustworthy sources. Trustworthy sources include family members, friends, credible organizations (think charities), and financial institutions.

Some tough love here, but it doesn’t matter if you meet your love interest in person, on FaceTime, or on a video call. I can’t stress how many people are less than truthful with me by saying they met their partner “in person” when they really called them over a video chat platform.

2: Never Send Personal Information

Just like point number one, never send your personal or sensitive information to people you’ve never met in person. Sure, the person behind the screen “loves you” and “needs your help,” but the reality is that they’re just using you.

Separate your emotions and ask yourself, “why is it smart of me to send them my personal information that a stranger could use for fraud or hack my bank accounts?”

It can be hard to take a step back. However, by following my rule to never send money or personal information, you won’t even need to do that! You just can end and report the conversation to protect your valuable cash and data.

3: Call a Trusted Source

No one wants to tell their friends or parents that they met someone online who’s asking them for money. First off, it took a decade for people to normalize online dating. But, there’s still a good amount of healthy skepticism for a reason!

Before you hit send on any money or personal information, talk to your trusted family members and friends. Talk it out with them and be open to what they have to say. Their outside perspective and honest opinions could save you thousands and thousands of dollars as well as hours wasted recovering your money or identity.

I encourage you to take it a step further and call your credit union or bank for advice.

4: Call Your Bank or Credit Union’s Contact Center

Your local credit union and bank are here to help you! We can be the best first line of dense to protect you from fraud. So, use us!

We’ve been professionally trained in fraud and how to handle these situations. We can walk you through the warning signs and explain any questions you may have. Plus, we have great additional resources available for you to read in our Learning Center!

From articles on “Account Compromise: 3 Common Scenarios” and “Identity Theft vs. Account Compromise: What’s the Difference,” we’re here to help!

5: End All Conversations that Involve Sending Money

Sorry, I’m giving you some more tough love on this one. Romance scammers may impersonate a lovely and nice person, sure. They can do this for weeks to months. However, the minute someone you met on an online dating app asks you for money, end it.

Never send the money, report the conversation, and console your broken heart over a glass of wine — especially if you never met in person.

Even if you feel like this person is real and they’ve sent you “real information” on them, consult your trusted friends, family members, and even your credit union or bank. We can give you an outsider’s perspective and explain why it’s a scam. It might hurt for a little bit. But, the relationship was based on a lie that the romance scammer created.

Romance scammers only care about getting your money or personal information. That’s their investment in the relationship. Learn how you can spot elder scams in our “How to Protect Seniors from Scams: Your 5 Step Guide” article.

Need Help Identifying a Potential Romance Scam: Contact Us

First New York FCU is here to help you shield yourself against scammers trying to steal your information and money. That’s why you can always contact us or visit our website to get the assistance you need when you need it.

You can text or call (518) 393-1326 to speak with a Member Service Specialist. The Contact Center is available Monday-Friday from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. and on Saturday from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.