Romance Scams: How to Verify Someone You Meet Online

In 2025, Americans aged 60 and over told the FBI they had lost $584 million to confidence and romance fraud, half as much again as the $389 million they reported the year before. Those are only the losses people chose to report.

None of this argues against meeting someone. It argues for keeping apart two things a skilled impostor works to fuse: the growth of affection and the movement of money. By the end you should be able to recognize the three common scripts, verify a person before extending trust, choose who else should see what you are doing, and act quickly if money has already left.

What the 2025 figures show

The FBI’s latest elder fraud figures appear in the 2025 annual report of its Internet Crime Complaint Center, the IC3. People 60 and over filed 10,188 confidence and romance complaints in 2025, up from 7,626 in 2024. Across all ages the category drew 23,159 complaints and $929 million in losses. The FBI’s definition is wider than courtship: it covers anyone tricked into sending money by someone they believe is a relative, friend or partner, including the grandparent scheme.

The IC3 gives each complaint a single crime type, and it describes cryptocurrency investment scams that begin on social media, text messages or dating applications. Those produced $7.2 billion in reported losses across all ages in 2025, and a romance that ends in one may be counted there. The 60-and-over group as a whole reported $7.748 billion in losses, and 12,444 people in it lost more than $100,000.

The Federal Trade Commission’s April 2026 Data Spotlight shows where the approach begins: nearly 60 percent of people who reported losing money to a romance scam in 2025 said it started on social media, with $298 million reported lost to romance scams that began there. According to those reports, scammers often tailored their approach to the details in a person’s profile.

How a widow’s life becomes a script

A memorial post, an obituary, a photograph from a benefit dinner, a profile that mentions a late husband: each supplies the outline of a character who will seem well suited to you. Suppose your profile mentions your husband and a love of sailing. The man who writes may turn out to be a widower who sails. The fit is not coincidence; it is research.

The wider pattern of approaches after a death is set out in Why the Approaches Increase, and How to Recognise Them. What distinguishes the romance approach is patience. The FTC describes scammers who sometimes talk or message several times a day, building trust before any request. By the time money is mentioned, refusing can feel like ending the relationship. That is the purpose of the delay. Privacy for a Visible Widow explains how to reduce what strangers can learn, but no privacy setting substitutes for verification.

The three scripts, and who writes them

The person writing may not be one person at all: the IC3 describes cryptocurrency investment scams as largely run by organized criminal enterprises in Southeast Asia that use trafficked people as forced labor.

The one who cannot come. He works on an oil rig, serves in the military, or is posted with an international organization. The distance explains why he cannot meet, and later why he needs a visa, a ticket to visit you, or fees to get out of trouble.

The sudden emergency. A medical bill for him or a relative, or some problem only money can solve. The FTC notes that scammers want payment quickly and in forms that are hard to reverse: a wire through a transfer company, gift cards with the PIN read aloud, a payment app, or cryptocurrency.

The opportunity. This script asks for nothing. He mentions how well his trading has gone and offers to show you how. The FTC describes romance scammers “casually offering investment advice” to draw people onto a fake platform; the IC3 describes platforms that display invented profits, then charge “taxes and fees” when the victim tries to withdraw. It works on capable women because it flatters judgment rather than compassion.

Red flags that outweigh the story

Stories vary; the mechanics do not. Treat any of these as decisive:

1. He cannot or will not meet in person, and each planned meeting collapses.
2. He asks early to move from the dating site or app to email, text or a private messaging service.
3. He asks for money, a loan, account access, or your account, card or Social Security numbers, which the CFPB says should not go to a new love connection.
4. He tells you how to pay, and the method is a wire, gift card, payment app or cryptocurrency.
5. He asks you to receive money or a package and send it on, which the CFPB describes as the work of a money mule.
6. He asks you to keep the relationship, or the request, from family and advisers.

A verification routine before trust becomes money

Verification is not an accusation, and a genuine person loses nothing by it.

Start with the photographs. The FTC recommends a reverse image search of the profile picture; if the same face appears under another name, you have your answer. Search his stated occupation with the word “scammer” as well, since these scripts are reused.

Then ask for a live video call at short notice, not at a time he chooses. A call that keeps failing is information. A call that succeeds is useful but not conclusive: the CFPB warns that artificial intelligence makes it easy to clone voices and create realistic video, and the IC3 counted more than $19 million in 2025 confidence and romance losses with a likely AI connection. Treat video as a filter, not a certificate. Check his claims through channels he does not control, and meet in person, in public, before the relationship deepens.

Finally, adopt one rule that no verification relaxes. The FTC’s bottom line is never to send money or gifts to a sweetheart you have not met in person. For a reader of means, a stricter house rule is sensible: no money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, loans, investments or account access inside a new relationship, however well verified. That is a recommendation, not a legal rule; its value is that you never have to judge an emergency on its merits. The money conversation a genuine relationship will eventually need is covered in Dating After Widowhood: When and How to Talk About Money.

A person who is real can wait while you verify him; only a script needs you to hurry.

Letting one other person see

Isolation is the working condition of this fraud. If you suspect a scam, the FTC’s first advice is to stop communicating and talk to someone you trust, and it asks whether friends or family have voiced concern about your new love interest. Their unease is evidence, even when unwelcome.

Choose that person before you need them: an adult child, an old friend, your attorney, or your banker. Agree that you will describe any request for money to them before replying. At a brokerage, naming a formal trusted contact adds a second safeguard; The Trusted Contact Person explains what that designation permits. You can also ask whether your bank will call you on a known number before any transfer to a new payee above a sum you set; not every institution offers this, so treat it as a request, not a guarantee.

If money has already been sent

Act within hours, and set embarrassment aside.

1. Call your bank or payment provider on the number from your card or statement. The IC3 advises requesting a recall of any wire and a hold harmless letter; for payment apps, wire companies, gift card issuers and cryptocurrency exchanges, the FTC advises reporting the scam and asking for a refund. Keep gift cards and receipts.
2. File at ic3.gov regardless of the amount, with full transaction details. In 2025 the IC3’s Recovery Asset Team acted on 642 incidents involving victims 60 and over, with $65.4 million in reported losses, and helped freeze $32.9 million.
3. Report to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to the site or app where you met.
4. Stop contact, but preserve every message, screenshot and transaction record.

The Elder Fraud Hotline, (833) FRAUD-11 or (833) 372-8311, helps with IC3 filings Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern. Be realistic about cryptocurrency: the FTC notes that it lacks the legal protections of credit and debit cards, although some states have passed laws that may help, so ask your attorney what applies where you live.

Then expect a second approach. In 2025 people 60 and over filed 2,529 recovery-scam complaints with the IC3, reporting $540.5 million in losses, a figure that may include the original scams. Refuse anyone who offers to retrieve your money for a fee, including someone claiming to represent an agency; the IC3’s own filing terms say it will not contact complainants.

Before anything leaves your account

1. Run a reverse image search on every profile photograph.
2. Search his stated occupation with the word “scammer”.
3. Hold a live video call at short notice, then meet in person in public.
4. Confirm his employer or connections through sources you find yourself.
5. Refuse every request for money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, loans or account access.
6. Take investment ideas only to your own adviser, never to his platform.
7. Describe any request for money to your trusted person before replying.
8. Save the numbers now: your bank’s fraud line, ic3.gov, ReportFraud.ftc.gov and (833) FRAUD-11.

This article provides general U.S. educational information and is not legal, financial, or investment advice. Confirm current procedures with your bank, the FTC or the IC3, and a qualified professional who knows your facts.