CLEVELAND — The internet is a great place for connecting with other people, but sometimes the people who want to connect with us don't have our best interest in mind. That's especially true if those people are romance scammers.
THE CLAIM
According to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report, lots of people think that if they're not on a dating app, they don't need to worry about romance scams.
THE SOURCES
To VERIFY whether this claim is true, we reviewed the following:
- FTC Data Spotlight reports from 2022 and 2023
- FTC Consumer Advice articles
THE RESEARCH
Let's start by defining what a romance scam is. The FTC tells us:
"Romance scammers create fake profiles on dating sites and apps or contact you through popular social media sites like Instagram or Facebook. The scammers strike up a relationship with you to build up trust, sometimes talking or chatting several times a day. Then, they make up a story and ask for money."
According to an FTC Data Spotlight report from Feb. 9, 2023, nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam in 2022, with total reported losses of $1.3 billion dollars.
The FTC reports that romance scammers often use dating apps to target people looking for love, but not always, and not even most of the time. Reports of romance scams that start with unexpected private messages on social media platforms are even more common.
The FTC reports that 40% of people who lost money to a romance scam in 2022 said the contact started on social media, while 19% said it started on a website or app.
It's also a common move for a scammer to try to quickly move the sweet talk to a messaging platform like WhatsApp, Google Chat, or Telegram.
THE ANSWER
So we can VERIFY THAT the claim, "I’m not on a dating app, so I don’t need to worry about romance scams," is false.
The key thing to remember is that this kind of scam doesn't have to be romantic. It's about building some kind of trusting relationship, and lots of people who fall victim to romance scammers aren’t looking for love when it happens.
If you have a claim you want to see verified, please email it to verify@wkyc.com or text the claim to (216) 344-3300.
