I have been warning you about romance scams for many years.  Romance scams generally follow a familiar pattern with the scammers  establishing relationships with people, generally women, online through various legitimate dating websites and social media using fake names, locations and images.  Most romance scams are online and originally involved some variation of the person you meet through an online dating site or social media quickly falling in love with you and then, under a wide variety of pretenses, asking for money. However in recent years the scam has evolved to where the scammer tells his victim that he or she has inside knowledge about investing through the scammer in non-existent investments which often have involved cryptocurrencies.

Recently Christopher Earl Lloyd of Whittier, California was arrested and charged with crimes related to using the dating apps Tinder, Hinge and Bumble as well as other websites for romance scam purposes through which federal prosecutors say he stole 2 million dollars from his victims after falsely telling his victims that he was a successful financial manager and that he could provide substantial returns on money they would invest with him.  All of it, prosecutors say, was a lie and that he merely used the money for his own personal expenses.

While anyone can be the victim of a romance scam, according to the FBI, the elderly, women and people who have been widowed are particular vulnerable.   Most romance scams are online and involve some variation of the person you meet through an online dating site or social media quickly falling in love with you and then, under a wide variety of pretenses, asking for money.  Since 2019 approximately half of the reported instances of the romance scam have started on social media, particularly Facebook and Instagram rather than on dating sites or dating apps according to the FTC.

TIPS

There are various red flags to help you identify romance scams.  I describe many of them in detail in my book “The Truth About Avoiding Scams.” The most important thing to remember is to always be skeptical of anyone who falls in love with you quickly online without ever meeting you and early into the relationship who then asks you to send money to assist them with a wide range of phony emergencies.

Here are a few other things to look for to help identify an online romance scam.  Often their profile picture is stolen from a modeling website on the Internet.  If the picture looks too professional and the person looks too much like a model, you should be wary. You also can check on the legitimacy of photographs or video images by seeing if they have been used elsewhere by doing a reverse image search using google.images.com or websites such as tineye.com.

Before investing with anyone, you should investigate the person offering to sell you the investment with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Central Registration Depository.  This will tell you if the broker is licensed and if there have been disciplinary procedures against him or her.  You can also check with your own state’s securities regulation office for similar information.  Many investment advisers will not be required to register with the SEC, but are required to register with your individual state’s securities regulators.   You can find your state’s agency by going to the website of the North American Securities Administrators Association. https://www.nasaa.org/investor-education/how-to-check-your-broker-or-investment-adviser/ Many investment advisers will not be required to register with the SEC, but are required to register with your individual state securities regulators.  You should also check with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for information about the particular  investment adviser. https://www.finra.org/investors/protect-your-money/ask-and-check

It is also important to remember that you should never  invest in something that you do not completely understand.  This was a mistake that many of Bernie Madoff’s victims made. You also may want to check out the SEC’s investor education website at www.investor.gov.  Scammers can be very convincing and it may sound like there is a great opportunity for someone to make some money, but you must be careful that the person making money is not the scam artist taking yours.

If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive free daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is sign up for free using this link. https://scamicide.com/scam-of-the-day/