Romance fraudsters conned people in South Yorkshire out of £839k in one year - prompting urgent warning

Data released by Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, shows that a total of 132 dating scams were reported in South Yorkshire last year.

The reported losses from those romance frauds totals a shocking combined figure of £839,100 – which equates to an average of £6,356.81 being snatched away by criminals during the course of the scam.

And that total could be just the tip of the iceberg, with many victims thought to be too embarrassed to report the matter to police.

Nationally, victims lost a combined £88 million to criminals in 2022, with nearly 8,000 incidents reported to Action Fraud.

Romance fraud occurs when a victim is duped into thinking they have met the perfect partner online either through a dating app or social media, but the perpetrator is not who they say they are and is in fact hiding behind a fake profile or false identity.

Detective Inspector James Smith, from South Yorkshire Police’s Fraud Co-ordination Team, said: “Criminals are experts at impersonating people. To exploit victims in this way, they spend time building up a seemingly genuine relationship with their them, which involves gaining their trust, so that they believe the person they are speaking to may be a sincere love interest. Once this trust has been established, the criminals then take advantage of their victim by asking them for money, in a way that avoids raising suspicion.”

Despite being regarded as being more technically savvy, it is people in their 20s who are most likely to report a dating scam.

Nearly a fifth of dating scams (19 per cent) were reported by people aged 20 to 29 last year, followed by people in their fifties (18 per cent) and forties (17 per cent).

The Action Fraud data shows men and women are both targeted by scammers fairly equally. Of the victims who revealed their gender to police last year, 51 per cent were male and 49 per cent female.

Looking at age and gender together, men in their 20s were most likely to fall victim to the romance scams, followed by women in their 50s.

The overall number of scams reported fell by 12 per cent last year, to 7,938, but this is still well above the number reported in 2019 or 2020.

Three high street financial institutions - Lloyds Bank, Nationwide Building Society and TSB - have all issued separate warnings and advice on what they call ‘romance fraud’.

Liz Ziegler, Fraud Prevention Director at Lloyds Bank, said: “The convincing lies told by fraudsters mean that while romance scam victims think they are falling in love, they’re actually falling for a scam. As well as losing thousands of pounds they also have to deal with this emotional betrayal.

“The sad truth is there was never any genuine connection, with criminals ruthlessly targeting multiple victims at the same time, and disappearing with the money as soon as they get found out.”

In a bid to combat romance fraud, Action Fraud advises people using online dating services to: be suspicious of any requests for money from someone you have never met in person, particularly if you have only recently met online; speak to your family or friends to get advice; and perform a reverse image search on profile photos - this can find images that have been taken from somewhere else.

They also advise that you do not: send money to someone you have never met in person, allow them access to your bank account or take out a loan for them; invest your own money on their advice; give them copies of your personal documents, such as passports; purchase and send the codes on gift cards from Amazon or iTunes or receive or send parcels on their behalf, such as laptops or mobile phones.