Instagram , tinder all on target in love scams online?
- Adults aged 60 and up were swindled of over US$139 million during 2020 -sixty-five per cent more than in 2019, the US FTC says
- Those aged seventy and older reported the highest median losses from romance scams: US$9,475
Do you know the cost of love? True love’s cost may be immeasurable, but the cost of romance scams totalled at least US$304 million in 2020.
And that is simply the tip of the iceberg, says the Federal Trade Commission, because many victims of romance scams are embarrassed to return forward.
One woman who did, Kate Kleinert, a widower in Pennsylvania, told the Senate Special Committee on Ageing last month how she got trapped during a romance scam that cost her about US$39,000 – and her pride.
After getting a friend request on Facebook in August 2020 from a man, Kleinert began corresponding with him on another app. “Tony,” said he was working in Iraq on a contract with the United Nations and after he asked, she sent gift cards to him and his children.
He planned to satisfy her in Philadelphia in December but didn’t show up. Then someone purporting to be Tony’s lawyer called saying he needed US$20,000 for Tony’s bail. “The lawyer told me to try to do whatever I could put a mortgage on my house, borrow it from someone in my family,” she testified. “I could not do it.”
Eventually, “I was living off my credit cards and he was getting what I took from Social Security and my pension”, she said.
Kleinert, who eventually learned the photographs sent by Tony were of a doctor in Spain, said she testified over frustration at an inability to urge justice and “it is so devastating and many people are through this but not spoken about it”.
Romance scams still climb, and over the last three years, people have reported losing extra money on them than the other fraud reported to the Federal Trade Commission. These scams, typically run on dating apps and over social media, increased among all age groups with losses of US$304 million, up about fifty per cent from 2019, the FTC says.
Age is just a number to romance scammers, who bilked older adults (aged 60 and up) out of more than US$139 million during 2020. That is sixty-five per cent quiet in 2019, when reported losses were nearly US$84 million, finds Protecting Older Consumers, 2020-2021, A Report of the Federal Trade Commission, released earlier this week.
Among all scams the FTC tracks, romance scams made up the very best reported losses for those aged sixty to seventy-five And those aged seventy and older reported the very best median losses from romance scams: US$9,475.80.
Opportunities for love scammers have risen during the widespread as older adults spent longer on social media.
“It does not always mean they are looking for love, it is that they just report that the scammer starts with an unexpected friend request or a message,” said Patti Poss, a senior lawyer in the FTC’s consumer protection bureau.
“Scammers are very sophisticated. And nobody should be embarrassed that this happened,” she said. “They know what they are doing, to be able to tell these stories, develop a relationship and get people’s money. You may not think you are sending something to a stranger because it is somebody that you simply think you recognize at that time .”
Romance scammers typically create fake profiles on dating sites and apps like Ashley Madison, Grindr, Match and Tinder. They also target users on Instagram and Facebook, the US FTC says.
AARP even chronicled a case where a seventy-five-year-old woman was conned out of about US$137,000 by a romance scammer she met on the Words With Friends game.
Some signs a web paramour is not all they propose to be include the claim that they live outside your country or are performing on an oil rig, with the military, or are a doctor with a world organisation.
They want to urge personal to some extent. A scammer will want to attach with a victim off the dating site, perhaps by email, phone or text. But they are doing not necessarily want to satisfy face to face.
Scammers eventually ask for money. After they build trust with their potential victims to try to so that they may connect online several times each day, the FTC says – they will invite money to help with an emergency like travel, medical aid or other expenses.
In payment, they may ask for money to be sent by wire transfer using Western Union or MoneyGram. Bank transfers and payments accounted for nearly one-third of reported romance scam losses by older adults at US$31 million, and romance scammers reportedly took another US$12 million in cryptocurrency.
Many romance fraud victims said scammers used the coronavirus pandemic to elucidate requests for money or their inability to satisfy face to face, the FTC says. Older adults reported losses of US$10.5 million on romance scams related to Coronavirus-19.
Cryptocurrency could come into play. The FBI has seen a rise in crimes where the romance scammer seeks to assist you to invest in or trade cryptocurrency.
Once signed up, the victim could also be ready to withdraw some funds, as a symbol of trust. But as bigger investments are urged often you have got to act fast, they assert all communication might break off.
SOURCE
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3153490/facebook-tinder-older-americans-increasingly