Ever since its release on Netflix, millions have watched in disbelief as Simon Leviev, aka Shimon Hayut, aka The Tinder Swindler conned multiple women he met online out of millions of dollars.
However, romance fraud isn’t a far-fetched subject of a true crime documentary: it’s already happening everywhere, and it’s on the rise.
According to an analysis by TSB, dating sites are “riddled with scammers.” The bank reported that it has refunded fraud victims, ranging from 18-years-old to 77, with female customers making up 66% of the cases it analysed.
Cybersecurity company Surfshark claims that, in 2020 alone, over $600 million (£440 million) was lost globally by internet users in confidence and romantic scams.
The scale of romance scams dramatically increased due to the pandemic, when communication was moved predominantly online. As a result, the number of romantic scams increased by almost a quarter, with an average of 65 victims every day worldwide, according to Surfshark’s figures.
“My practice has doubled in the past two years,” Louise Bennett, civil fraud and asset recovery partner at Keystone Law, tells Stylist. “Sadly, when times are difficult, fraudsters become more desperate for money, and so their scams increase. This coincides with a significant increase in users of dating apps, and so honey traps are now unfortunately very common too.”
