It’s a scam as old as the ages, targeting lonely people with promises of love — and it’s on the rise.
The classic romance scam — in which a lovelorn victim is conned into sending money to a stranger they’ve met online — shot through the roof last year, with an 80% jump in reported cases to an all-time high, the Federal Trade Commision said.
Over 56,000 such cases were reported last year, up from 33,000 in 2020, and at least $547 million was stolen, up from $307 million the prior year, the FTC said.
““Romance scammers are masters of disguise.””
People over 70 are the most frequent victims, but the report said the biggest rise over the last year came among people ages 18 to 29.
Researchers say there was no definitive cause for the uptick that could be gleaned from their data, but they suspected that it could be partially attributed to the coronavirus pandemic making lonely people isolated at home more susceptible to such scams.
They also pointed to frauds involving phony cryptocurrency investments…
