What Are Romance Scams: How to Detect & Protect Against Romance Fraud

Scams leave both a financial and emotional scar on victims. But few scams are as heart-wrenching as romance scams, a form of deception that exploits our human need for connection and companionship and that has resulted in $1.14 billion in losses according to data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).¹

In this detailed article, we’ll dive deep into how romance scams operate, the types of manipulative tactics they use, new technological advancements like LoveGPT, and measures banks and financial institutions can take to support customers from these threats.

Key Takeaways

• Romance scams (also called romance fraud or catfishing) are a type of fraud in which fraudsters manipulate victims into believing they have romantic or intimate feelings for their victim.
• Romance scams often start online (on social media or dating sites). When scammers think they have earned trust, they invent a crisis and coerce victims to send them money.
• Technological advancements like LoveGPT gives scammers precision-level tools to conduct multiple romance scams with different targets.
• To protect their customers, banks should embrace tactics like federated learning and data orchestration to understand the insights behind romance scam activity.

What are Romance Scams?

Romance scams, sometimes called romance fraud or catfishing, are a type of fraud where fraudsters use romantic gestures to convince someone that they have genuine, intimate feelings for them. In reality, however, they use psychological manipulation on their victims to earn trust and eventually ask them to send them money, reveal sensitive information, or give them valuable items (e.g., gift cards, jewelry). 

While many other types of fraud use pressure tactics to urge victims to send them money within a few minutes, romance scams can be drawn out over several days, weeks, months, or even years. Scammers do this because they hope to get a much larger payout from their target. In some cases, romance scams can lead to the depletion of retirement savings—at which point it crosses into a “pig butchering” scam. 

How Do Romance Scams Work?

Scammers take several essential steps when launching a successful romance scam. These steps include: 

1. Scammers Craft a Fake Online Persona

Criminals craft a convincing-looking profile for a dating platform, social media site, or even a messaging board. They may lurk on the platform to study their target’s interest and passions before reaching out to make a connection.

2. Develop Emotional Connections with Target

After observing their target and understanding their persona, scammers reach out with a message or friend request. The initial communication typically speaks to something important to the target, such as a shared love of pets, life challenges, or anything else that makes the connection seem believable. 

3. Foster Trust and Intimacy

Having established a connection, scammers will keep communicating with their target over time to gain their trust. During this time, they may share fake anecdotes or memories tailored to make them appear more believable and encourage their target to feel an emotional or romantic connection.

4. Scammer Creates a Fake Crisis

When they believe their target has strong feelings for them (or their fake persona, more accurately), scammers invent a crisis. This may be a medical emergency, an arrest, a (fake) family member suddenly falling sick, or a financial issue.

5. Increase Financial Demands

Whatever crisis they use, scammers then turn to their victims for financial help. They may ask for a money transfer, a wire or instant payment,  buying gift cards and sharing PINs on the back, or even mailing cash. Romance scam victims believe they are helping a real person for whom they care about deeply, and often overlook or dismiss red flags.

6. Continuing Communication or Disappearing

Once they receive money from their targets, romance scammers may keep up the ruse to try to get more money from their target. For example, they may say that the money sent to help with a medical crisis covered only an operation, but they need more for rehabilitation or medicine. They often use guilt to pressure the victim into giving even more money.

If the victim doesn’t follow through and declines to send money, the scammer may cease communication altogether. They simply pick a new target and start the cycle again.

LoveGPT: A New Age of Advanced Romance Scams

Recent advancements in AI technology, such as the launch of the malicious program LoveGPT, threaten to make romance scams even more convincing and scalable. LoveGPT is a sophisticated AI tool that can automate and scale romance scams across multiple online dating sites or platforms. This rise in AI-powered scams also raises concerns about deepfake fraud, where synthetic media can be used to create convincing fake videos or audio to deceive victims further.

“LoveGPT is so concerning because it was built to push a specific type of fraud—a long-form tactic frequently seeing higher volumes of payouts that exploit victims’ trust.” Dan Holmes, Director of Banking, Identity & Market Strategy, Feedzai

Using generativeAI (GenAI) not only can criminals rapidly create fake profiles of digital suitors, they can also automate them. This means profiles can be trained to engage in a certain manner with one victim and differently with another, and so on. This capability gives criminals the ability to launch multiple romance scam efforts at unprecedented efficiency and realism.

Here’s how LoveGPT works:

• Automated Fake Dating Profile Creation: The tool quickly produces realistic profiles using AI-driven text and images, including photos, videos, and audio from websites or social media. It can also write convincing backstories and create profiles on dating platforms.  
• Dodging Security Measures: LoveGPT can sidestep security protocols like CAPTCHA, verify phone numbers, create fake email addresses, and automatically create usernames. It also uses anonymization tactics to avoid detection by dating profile protocols. 
• Widespread Outreach & Conversation: LoveGPT can hold multiple conversations with different people, quickly read and respond to messages using auto-generated text that sounds human and is error-free, and make each interaction feel personal and unique. This can be replicated at scale, allowing scammers to target multiple victims simultaneously.
• Data Harvesting: The program can scrap data from different user interactions (e.g., profile pictures, chats, or other personal details) and store them in a database. This data can be used to adjust future scam tactics, enabling  scammers to evolve their methods.

Romance Scams: Heartbreaking Trends & Statistics

• $1.14B: Losses from romance scams reported in 2023 (FTC).¹
• 20%: Increased rate of romance scams reported in Q1 2025 vs. Q1 2024 (Barclays).²
• $2,000: Median losses per person from romance scams (FTC).¹
• 40%: Share of people who lost money to a romance scam said they were first contacted on social media (FTC).³
• 150%: Increase in financial “sextortion” cases reported in 2023 from 2022 (Moody’s).⁴

4 Common Types of Romance Scams

Romance scams can take many forms, including:

• Military Impersonation: Some scammers claim to be active military personnel to win sympathy from targets and avoid meeting in person. This deception also provides a cover for their secrecy or failure to communicate in a timely manner.
• Elder Fraud: Many scammers target senior citizens who are seeking companionship. Older victims are often targeted because they are not always tech-savvy, have amassed retirement savings, and may be more trustworthy.
• Investment Scams/Pig Butchering: Not all romance scams are based on relationships or intimacy. Some scammers exploit victims’ trust by convincing them to partake in cryptocurrency or other fake business opportunities. When scams reach this level and involve larger amounts of money they are considered pig butchering scams that transfer large amounts of money from person or region to another.
• Money Mule Scams: Some romance scams victims are convinced to act as money mules and receive money into their bank accounts or open accounts using their own credentials. They later transfer the money to other accounts or allow their “partner” to access the account. This type of activity carries serious legal and financial risks for the victim.

Romance Fraud Detection: Signs to Look Out For 

If you’re not sure how to spot a romance scam, here are several important red flags to monitor:

• Extreme Flattery: Scammers often profess deep feelings for their victims quickly to win over victims and gain trust in a short period of time.  
• Pressure to Move Communication to Different Channels: If connections are made on dating platforms or social media sites, criminals will look to move communication to a different channel or app.
• Avoiding Meetings, Phone Calls, or Video Chats: Scammers frequently create excuses to avoid meeting their victims in person or have a face-to-face conversation. They often claim their work puts them at risk or they have bad reception because they are based overseas. 
• Focus on Investments and Finances: Some scammers push fake investments, including cryptocurrency or fake business opportunities, claiming to have insider information that is both lucrative and time-sensitive. This pressures victims to act quickly in the hopes of seeing a return on their money.
• Insistence on Secrecy: Scammers often urge victims to keep communications with them a secret. The goal is to avoid getting their victim to check in with a family member or loved one who might suspect a scam is underway.

How Banks Can Prevent Romance Fraud

Consumers  and everyday people are not the only ones who must be vigilant against romance scams. Banks and financial institutions play a critical role in detecting romance scams and keeping their customers safe. It’s important to be on alert for red flags, such as:

• Shifts in User Behavior: A customer who has never sent money overseas suddenly wants to transfer large amounts of money abroad is likely being manipulated by a romance scammer or other nefarious activity. Some customers may open entirely new accounts, change beneficiaries, make unusual transfers, or request new financial products without a clear explanation.
• Multiple Transfers to New Recipients: A series of transfers to different and newly-added recipients is a red flag that the customer is being manipulated into sending money to several different accounts.
• Using Non-traditional Payment Options: E.g., requests for payments in cryptocurrency, gift cards, money transfers, or prepaid debit cards are common payout methods in romance scams.
• Customers Become Defensive: If a customer is pressed if they want to proceed with a transaction or warned that they may be getting scammed, they may become upset. In some cases, they may repeat a phrase or explanation that their scammer provided to move past the bank’s reluctance. 
• Consider Customer Anecdotes: Some customers may reveal they are being scammed in a conversation or exchange with bank personnel. Listen for stories of a sudden medical emergency, travel problems, or a legal issue to help someone the customer met online. Try to convince the customer they are being manipulated before they finalize a transaction.

How Feedzai Helps Financial Institutions Fight Romance Scams

Feedzai puts AI at the center of its scam prevention solutions, rapidly analyzing data, collaborative insights, and known scam patterns to help financial institutions catch romance scams before they result in financial losses. Here’s how our solutions empower financial institutions to protect customers from the heavy financial and emotional tool of romance scams.

Reduced Data Silos Powered by Data Orchestration

Feedzai’s data orchestration technology breaks down data silos by integrating disparate internal and external data sources, and merging them in workflows. With this ability, banks and financial institutions can identify if a potential scammer is real or not, or cross-reference data against trusted sources associated with previous scams or fraud attempts. This approach improves detection accuracy and can ultimately protect the victim from being exploited by a fake romantic partner.

360º View of Customer Risk with No Blind Spots

Feedzai combines behavioral, device, and network data which, combined with account and transaction data, enables the detection of subtle patterns associated with scams like romance scams. Whether it’s a customer hesitating on a specific action or an active call detected in conjunction with adding new beneficiaries, this approach ensures the bank has crucial context, allowing for earlier scam detection and significantly improving the chances of mitigation.

GenAI for Faster Scam Detection

Feedzai’s GenAI-powered ScamAlert can help bank customers protect themselves from scams by sharing screenshots of suspicious text messages or other types of communication. The bank can prompt the customer to run a scam validation to reduce scam risk to their customers and to their organization. ScamAlert rapidly scans the message in seconds and flags suspicious elements, including pressure to act fast or vague and missing details. The solution allows customers to protect themselves more effectively and builds trust with their bank. 

Federated Learning to Enhance Fraud and Scam Detection

It helps to understand how other banks have dealt with romance scams. However, sharing raw data raises important questions over data privacy, security, and actionability. Feedzai’s IQ™ uses federated learning, empowering AI algorithms to review metadata while raw data remains secure in a bank’s system. In other words, banks can benefit from actionable intelligence and insights without having access to sensitive data.

Link Analysis to Break Up Crime Rings

Feedzai also leverages its broad global network and visual link analysis to identify connections between accounts, devices, and transaction flows. This helps uncover organized fraud rings operating romance scams and enables banks to take proactive action to protect customers and disrupt fraudulent networks. 

Final Thoughts

Romance scams stand out among other scams for their heartlessness. They are especially cruel because they prey on human beings’ perfectly natural need to find companionship. It’s important that both banks and customers understand how these scams work, and how new technology like LoveGPT will make them more convincing and scalable.

Financial institutions have a vital role to play at every stage of a romance scam: preventing them, studying them and adapting to new methods, and helping customers recover. Banks can use data orchestration and federated learning and build cross-industry coalitions to forge strong defenses against romance scam activities. It will take partners and data-based insights to protect everyday people from this heartbreaking crime and the emotional and financial damage it inflicts and the often-overlooked psychological effects of being scammed.

Resources

• Blog: The Psychological Impact of Scams
• Webinar: Cross-sector Solutions to Stop Scams
• Solution Sheet: Smarter Fraud Detection with Feedzai IQ™
• Solution: Scam Detection & Prevention Solutions