By CultureBanx Team
- Scammers preying on love and the lonely cost Americans $1.3B over the past five years
- The largest reported losses to romance scams were paid in cryptocurrency with $139M
Keep your hearts three stacks because fraudsters carried out romance scams on the largest scale ever. These people preying on love and the lonely had more than 60,000 people report a romance scam to the FTC, with losses rising from $547 million in 2021 to $1.14 billion in 2023. The median individual reporting a loss of $2,000. Some common targets are vulnerable people over 50, often women, this leaves many wondering how much does love actually cost.
Why This Matters: Be sure to protect your heart and your bank account during this season of love. Romance scams are truly a terrible breakup and occur when a criminal adopts a fake online identity to gain a victim’s affection and trust, according to the FBI. In the past five years, people have reported losing a staggering $1.3 billion to romance scams, more than any other FTC fraud category.
You don’t have to be looking for love to be courted by a romance scammer. Reports of unexpected private messages on social media platforms are common. More than a third of people who said they lost money to an online romance scam in 2021, and stated it began on Facebook (FB -3.74%) or Instagram.
Situational Awareness: A growing trend with scammers using romance as a hook to lure people into bogus investments, especially cryptocurrency. The largest reported losses to romance scams were paid in cryptocurrency with $139 million last year alone, and the median individual reported a crypto loss of $9,770. Perhaps having a single core principle of not sending money to anyone you have not met in person will keep most of the troubles away. If you have suspicions about a possible romance scam, report it to the FTC.
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