Romance Scam Signs: The Six Moves That Come Before Money
Most advice about romance scams starts in the wrong place. It assumes you are on a dating app.
According to the FTC, nearly 60 percent of people who reported losing money to a romance scam in 2025 said it began on a social media platform, not a dating site. A comment on a photo. A friend request from someone with a mutual connection. A message that opens with something about your dog.
That matters, because if you are not looking for a relationship you may not think any of this applies to you. It does.
Losses among people aged 60 and over reached $584 million in 2025, according to the FBI, up from $389 million the year before. This article covers the six moves that happen before money is ever mentioned.
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1. They move you off the platform quickly
Within a few messages, they suggest continuing on WhatsApp, Telegram, or text. The reason sounds ordinary: the app is buggy, they barely check it, they prefer texting.
The real reason is that platforms have safety teams. Dating sites and social networks flag accounts that message hundreds of people, and they remove profiles that get reported. Off the platform, none of that exists, and there is no longer a profile anyone can report.
The test: say you are happy to keep talking here for now. Someone genuine will shrug. A scammer will keep pushing, because every hour spent on a monitored platform is a risk to them.
2. They will not do a live video call
This is the single most reliable sign, and it is worth being strict about.
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There is always a reason. Bad connection on the rig. The camera on the base is broken. Poor signal at the hospital. The reasons rotate but the answer never changes.
AI has made photos and even short clips easy to fake, so a picture proves nothing. A live call where you can ask them to do something specific still proves a great deal. The FBI reported that victims lost more than $19 million in 2025 to catfish-style scams with a likely AI connection, involving generated images, scripted conversations and cloned audio.
The test: ask for a live video call and ask them to wave, or to say today's date. Not a recording, not a photo. Anyone who cannot do this after weeks of daily conversation is not who they say they are.
3. The job explains the absence
Oil rig engineer. Military deployment overseas. Surgeon with an aid organisation. Contractor on a project abroad. Ship's captain.
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These jobs are chosen for one reason: each one explains why you cannot meet, why the signal is poor, why plans change suddenly, and why an emergency might require money urgently. The whole plot is built into the job title.
Real people do have these jobs. The signal is the job plus the refusal to video call plus the distance, arriving together.
4. Fast, deep emotional intimacy
Within days you know about a difficult childhood, a lost spouse, a betrayal. Soon there is talk of a future, and words like soulmate or destiny.
Genuine closeness usually builds unevenly, with awkward gaps. Scripted closeness moves in a straight line and moves fast, because the operation needs attachment before it needs anything else.
Many of these messages come from organised centres. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has documented large compounds in Southeast Asia where trafficked workers are forced to run these conversations from scripts. The person typing may be a victim too.
5. Small inconsistencies you talk yourself out of
The English does not match the claimed background. A detail about family changes between conversations. The time of day they message does not fit the time zone they claim.
You will not catch a dramatic lie. What you get is a series of small snags, each easy to explain away on its own.
The test: write down three specific facts they told you in the first week. Names, places, dates. Ask about them casually a month later. A real life stays consistent because it is remembered rather than invented.
6. The pivot to investing
This is where the money actually goes, and most warnings stop before reaching it.
The conversation turns to their success with a trading platform, often cryptocurrency. They are not asking for anything. They offer to show you, and they help you set up a small account. Your balance rises. You add more. Everything works.
Then withdrawing requires a fee, then a tax, then a compliance payment.
The FTC's payment data shows why this version is so much worse than the old one. The median loss when a romance scam is paid by gift card is about $700. When it is paid in cryptocurrency, the median is $10,079.
Gift cards run out. An investment story continues until the accounts are empty.
Two checks that take five minutes
Reverse image search their photos. Save a picture, then search it on Google Images or TinEye. Stolen photos usually belong to a model, an influencer, or a real person in another country. If the same face appears under a different name, you have your answer.
Search their exact phrases. Paste a distinctive sentence from their messages into a search engine, in quotes. Scripts get reused, and victims post them on scam forums. Seeing your own love letter on a warning site is unpleasant, and it is faster than any other check.
Why this works on careful people
It needs saying, because shame is what keeps most of these losses hidden.
Romance scams do not work by making you gullible. They work by building a real relationship first, using time, attention and consistency, which are the same things that build any genuine bond. By the time money appears, the person asking is somebody you care about.
Add to that a professional operation running a tested script, sometimes with several people on one conversation, and this is not a fair fight.
The FTC estimates that fewer than one in twenty fraud victims ever report it. The real totals are far above the published ones.
If you are worried about someone
Accusing rarely works, and often makes the person defend the relationship harder.
Ask questions instead. Have you had a video call? What does their voice sound like? Has anything been mentioned about money or investing?
Then say the thing that actually matters: that you will not judge them, and that they can come to you at any point without being told they should have known better. That sentence is what makes it possible for someone to stop.
If money has already gone
- Stop all contact, including to say you know. Telling them prompts them to move the funds.
- Call your bank now on the number on your card. Wires can occasionally be recalled within the first 24 to 72 hours.
- File at ic3.gov. This activates the FBI Recovery Asset Team. Be aware that it has no mechanism to recover cryptocurrency, which is why speed matters most before crypto is involved.
- Report to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and report the profile to the platform.
- Keep everything. Messages, profile screenshots, wallet addresses, account numbers.
- Expect a recovery scam. Someone will contact you offering to get the money back for a fee. That is the same operation returning.
Anyone aged 60 or over can call the National Elder Fraud Hotline free on 1-833-372-8311. Our page on the first 48 hours covers the bank conversation in detail.
Check before you trust
Look up a phone number, website, or email here, free and in about ten seconds. If the trading platform they showed you has been reported, you will see it.
Related reading
- How voice cloning works and how to reduce your voice footprint
- The five costliest scams hitting older adults
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