“More than a third of people who said they lost money to an online romance scam in 2021 said it began on Facebook or Instagram.”
A growing trend in 2021: scammers using romance as a hook to lure people into bogus investments, especially cryptocurrency, the report states.
“People are led to believe their new online companion is a successful investor who, before long, casually offers investment advice,” according to the report. “These so-called investment opportunities often involve foreign exchange (forex) trading or cryptocurrency. And when people follow this investment ‘advice,’ they wind up losing all the money they ‘invest.’”
The largest reported losses to romance scams were paid in cryptocurrency: $139 million last year alone — nearly five times those reported in 2020, and more than 25 times those reported in 2019, the report said.
In 2021, “the median individual reported loss using cryptocurrency was a staggering $9,770,” according to the report. “While cryptocurrency losses were the most costly, it was not the most common payment method for romance scams.”
