Are you hoping for true love? And more money than you ever imagined?

Who isn’t?

That’s why an unconscionable cadre of criminals dangle these twin temptations — the promise of romance and vast wealth — in what can be an emotionally and financially devastating double-barreled scam. The deception starts out as romance fraud and transforms into a cryptocurrency investment fraud in which victims have lost millions of dollars.

Essentially, the criminal seduces the victim online, then gets him or her to make bogus investments in crypto. It’s been a growing problem for about three years, says Erin West, a deputy district attorney in San Jose, California, who focuses on battling cryptocurrency crime.

Victims often don’t realize there’s no money in their digital currency accounts until it’s too late, says Amy Nofziger, director of victim support for the AARP Fraud Watch Network, and by then the “criminal has long moved on to another victim.”

West, who has seen the trail of destruction that crypto-romance scammers leave in their wake, notes that victims not only have to grapple with the financial loss but also the heartbreaking betrayal by a “person they’ve grown to love and trust.”

The scope of the problem

It’s hard to pinpoint the precise number of victims — scams are notoriously underreported — but nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2022, with $1.3 billion in reported losses — up from 56,000 reports and $547 million lost in 2021. (Those figures include non-crypto losses.) And the amount stolen tends to be far higher for older adults, who tend to have more money to lose: The median individual loss from romance scams for people 70 and over was $9,000 in 2021, according to the FTC, compared with $2,400 across all age groups.

Cryptocurrency fraud also has taken a quantum leap in recent years. The FTC says that in 2022, more than 53,000 people reported losing a total of more than $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency to scams.

The need to come up with the so-called tax can prompt victims to mortgage their house, deplete 401(k)s, raid their kids’ college funds or borrow from relatives, says West, who calls the crime “hideous.”

“It is a long con that’s really laser-focused on taking every penny from the victim," she adds. “That’s why we’re literally seeing suicides. We are seeing people checking themselves into psychiatric facilities.”

How to protect yourself from this scam

• Beware of people you meet online, particularly if they quickly want to leave the dating website and communicate with you through email or instant messaging. (AARP’s Fraud Resource Center offers more information on avoiding romance scams.)
• Never send money or invest based on the advice of someone you have met solely online.
• Never disclose anything about your financial status to people you don’t know.
• Don’t provide your banking information, Social Security number, copies of IDs (including passport) or other sensitive information to anyone online or on a site that you do not know is legitimate.
• Be wary of anyone who claims to have exclusive investment opportunities with guaranteed profits. They’ll also typically urge you to act fast.   

More Resources

• File a police report. If you experience a scam, the documentation may be of value if there is some means of recouping your loss.
• File reports with the federal government. The FTC and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center use fraud reports to target their investigations; the more information they have, the better they can identify patterns, link cases and ultimately catch the criminals. Contact the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov and the FBI at IC3.gov.  
• To learn more about crypto, check out the FTC’s guidance at ftc.gov/cryptocurrency.
• To hear about a Cape Cod boat captain's experience with a crypto-romance scam, listen to this episode of AARP's The Perfect Scam.