Romance fraud is rarely an improvised con. It is a repeatable playbook: build trust over weeks, then introduce money—usually as an emergency or a cryptocurrency investment. If someone you have never met in person asks for cash or pushes you toward a platform they recommend, the safest answer is a flat no.
The scale is stark. The FBI’s IC3 2025 annual report recorded 23,159 complaints about confidence or romance fraud in the United States, up from 17,910 in 2024. Losses reached $929 million (about €829 million), compared with $672 million the previous year. Victims over 60 alone lost more than $584 million (about €521 million). Spain’s National Police has also warned about the scheme; one social media campaign summed it up with the line “starts as a date and ends as a #scam.”
- Pressure to leave the dating app: Scammers try to move conversations to SMS, messaging apps, email or phone calls, where platform detection tools are weaker.
- Serious commitment without meeting: They push for a relationship while dodging questions and avoiding in-person meetings.
- Video-call avoidance: They refuse video calls or phone calls.
- The stranded-abroad story: They claim to be from your country but stuck elsewhere and in urgent need of money to return.
A script that repeats across dating apps
Tinder’s safety guidance lists those red flags and adds a blunt rule: never send money by transfer or payment app, even if the other person claims to be in a critical situation, because such transfers are nearly impossible to reverse. Bumble offers photo verification and in-app video calls so users can avoid handing over a phone number too early.
The IC3 also notes that scammers now use fake profiles and chatbot-generated scripts to sound more convincing. It counted more than $19 million in romance-scam losses in 2025 with probable AI involvement. A perfect photo or an impeccable conversation proves nothing, and knowing how to spot fake videos, voices and images is basic dating hygiene.
When romance becomes an investment trap
The costliest variant mixes romance with cryptocurrency. FinCEN, the U.S. Treasury’s financial crimes network, described it in a September 2023 alert as pig butchering: the victim is “fattened” with a trusted relationship before being “slaughtered” financially.
IC3 describes a familiar sequence:
- Contact arrives by SMS, social media, an ad or a dating app, then quickly moves to a messaging app.
- The conversation turns to investing in cryptocurrency or gold, sometimes through a supposed expert group.
- The victim sends money to a fake platform that shows fictitious profits and even offers loans to invest more.
- When the victim tries to withdraw, the platform demands “taxes” or “fees”—a final squeeze before disappearing.
Cryptocurrency investment fraud was the largest source of financial loss in IC3’s 2025 data, at $7.2 billion (about €6.4 billion). The FBI attributes much of this activity to Southeast Asian criminal organizations that use trafficking victims as forced labor. That detail matters: the person writing on the other side may also be a victim, following a coerced script in a scam compound. It is work, not a whirlwind romance.
Spain’s National Police makes the same point: check whether an investment platform is legal before putting money in.
If you have already paid
Stop sending money immediately. Do not pay a “final commission” in exchange for a promise that everything will be returned.
- Call your bank as soon as possible and explain that it is fraud. Speed matters.
- Report it to Spain’s National Police or Guardia Civil, with screenshots of conversations, profiles, platform addresses and payment receipts.
- Report the profile inside the app. Tinder and Bumble provide blocking and reporting tools; Bumble notes that users can report even after unmatching.
- Use free support. INCIBE’s 017 cybersecurity helpline is free and confidential.
- Be wary of recovery offers. IC3 warns about recovery scams: after the first loss, supposed experts appear and promise to retrieve the money for a fee.
If you shared passwords, verification codes or remote access to your device during the “relationship,” review guidance on how to tell whether you have been hacked and what to do next. Prevention tools help, but they are not guarantees: IC3 has documented scams using cloned voices.
The deeper problem is silence. Victims often delay reporting because of shame, and that gap gives fraudsters room to keep operating. If someone you know describes a partner who never appears on video and suddenly knows a lot about crypto, don’t judge—ask questions. That conversation may be more useful than any app filter.