Romance Scams: How to Recognise the Fraud That Targets Hearts and Bank Accounts

The Most Expensive Fraud You May Never Have Heard About

Romance fraud is consistently one of the highest-value fraud categories in the UK, and older adults are disproportionately targeted. The average loss per victim is substantially higher than for most other types of fraud, often in the tens of thousands of pounds. In some cases, victims have lost their entire life savings, their homes, or significant portions of their retirement funds.

What makes romance fraud particularly devastating is not just the financial loss but the emotional harm. Victims have typically formed what feels like a genuine relationship with the person who defrauds them. The grief and shame that follow can be as significant as the financial damage, and they are compounded by a cultural tendency to blame victims for being deceived, which is both unfair and completely inaccurate.

This guide explains exactly how these scams work, because the detail matters. Vague warnings about being careful online do not protect people. Understanding the specific tactics, the specific patterns, and the specific red flags does.

Where and How These Scams Begin

Romance fraud typically begins on platforms where people are looking for connection: dating websites and apps, social media platforms (Facebook in particular has been a significant venue for romance fraud targeting older adults), or in some cases through email. The fraudster creates a detailed, attractive profile using stolen photographs, often of a real person whose identity they have taken without consent.

The profile typically presents someone who is successful, educated, and living an interesting life: an engineer working on a project overseas, a military officer deployed abroad, a widowed doctor, a successful businessperson who travels frequently. The offshore or overseas element is critical to the scam because it provides a permanent explanation for why the two people cannot meet in person.

Initial contact is warm, attentive, and focused on the target. The fraudster asks questions, listens carefully to answers, and reflects those answers back in ways that make the target feel deeply understood. The attention and emotional investment arrive quickly; far faster than genuine relationships typically develop. This is sometimes called love-bombing.

The Love-Bombing Phase

Love-bombing is the period in which the fraudster invests heavily in emotional connection with the target. Messages arrive consistently, often multiple times a day. The fraudster expresses strong feelings quickly (often within weeks), uses terms of endearment, and describes a special connection that feels unlike anything they have experienced before. They share detailed information about their life (all of it fabricated), which creates the impression of genuine intimacy and reciprocity.

This phase can last months. The fraudster is patient because the eventual financial reward justifies the investment of time. During this period, no money is requested. The relationship feels entirely real because the emotional content, the conversations about hopes and fears and family and the future, is real to the target even if the other person is fictional.

By the time money is first mentioned, the target has often formed a deep emotional attachment. They may have spoken on the phone (though video calls are avoided or conducted using deepfake technology). They may have planned a future together. The fraudster has become one of the most important people in their life.

The First Financial Request

The first request for money typically comes framed as an emergency or an opportunity. A crisis has arisen that prevents the fraudster from accessing their own funds: a medical emergency, a business deal gone wrong, a legal situation requiring a fee, a problem with customs clearing a shipment. The request is often framed with urgency and with assurances that the money will be returned quickly.

The amount requested is usually within what the fraudster assesses the target can manage, based on what they have learned about them during the relationship. It feels manageable and temporary. The target sends the money. The crisis resolves. The relationship continues. The target feels relief and the bond is strengthened.

Then another crisis occurs. And another. Each request builds on the established pattern and the established trust. By the time targets realise what is happening (if they do), the total amount transferred may be catastrophic. Some victims are so deeply attached to the relationship and so invested in believing it is real that they continue sending money even after family members raise concerns.

The Red Flags: What to Watch For

Understanding the red flags of romance fraud is the most practical protection available. None of these individually proves a scam, but a pattern of them together should prompt serious caution.

The relationship moves very fast. Strong feelings are expressed very early. The person claims to live or work overseas. Video calls are avoided, delayed, or of very poor quality. The person's profile photographs reverse image search to reveal they belong to another person. The person's story contains inconsistencies that do not quite add up. Despite the closeness of the relationship, a meeting is always delayed by a new obstacle. And, most critically, money is requested, regardless of the reason given.

Legitimate romantic partners do not ask for money. This is not true of scammers, and it does not matter how compelling the explanation is. If someone you have met online but never in person asks you for money, the answer should always be no.

Why It Is So Hard to Recognise from the Inside

One of the most important things to understand about romance fraud is why intelligent, experienced, and well-informed people are taken in by it. The answer is not stupidity or naivety. It is that these scams exploit the fundamental human need for connection and the cognitive and emotional processes through which we form attachments.

When we are emotionally invested in a relationship, our brain actively resists information that threatens that investment. Doubts are rationalised away. Warning signs that seem obvious to an outside observer are invisible to someone looking from the inside of the relationship. This is not weakness; it is how human attachment works, and it is exactly what these fraudsters exploit.

This is why the most effective protection is establishing some rules before entering online dating, rather than relying on being able to recognise deception in the moment: never send money to someone you have not met in person, always reverse image search profile photographs, always tell someone you trust who you are talking to online.

If You Are Being Targeted or Have Been Defrauded

If you think you might be in a romance fraud situation, stop sending money immediately. Talk to someone you trust about what has been happening. Contact Action Fraud (0300 123 2040) to report the situation. Contact your bank if money has already been transferred, as some transactions can be recovered or stopped.

If you have been defrauded, please do not suffer this in silence. The shame belongs to the person who committed the fraud, not to you. Reporting it creates a record that may help protect others, and support is available. Victim Support (0808 168 9111) and the Samaritans (116 123) both provide support for people experiencing the emotional aftermath of fraud. You are not alone in this.