Monday, 15 February 2021_Loneliness and isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic has given the so-called “romance scammers” a great chance to target Americans desperately seeking love online.
The FBI reported a rise in such scams, which seem to offer romance but aim to steal money.
The scammers often pretend they have jobs faraway, like the military or an oil rig.
Local FBI office warns of ‘Romance Scammers;’ El Paso area victims lost $1.6M in 2020https://t.co/vToMp85k9w pic.twitter.com/87iNg0kE2s
— El Paso Herald-Post (@epheraldpost) February 10, 2021
They exchange messages with the victims on social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or dating sites and apps like Match.com and Tinder.
The scammers make requests for money for some reason and the victims pay to help only to find out that it is never coming back.
With the cash is in hand, the scammers disappear.
Somethings in the water or air tonight. Blocked 3 romance/catfish scammer in the past hour.
— Bob W Garner-just bob-Spaceman Spiff (@athikers_bob) February 9, 2021
Just in in 2020 the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received 23,768 relationship fraud complaints, 4,295 more than the precious year.
The figure amounts to approximately $605 million in financial losses this year, up from $475 million in 2019.
‘Social pain’
With the pandemic limiting social interactions, the scammers have a more reasonable excuse not to meet in person.
“There’s always a reason that they can’t meet in person. That’s one big red flag,” Emma Fletcher, a program analyst at the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection, told Recode. “Then eventually, of course, they always ask for money, right? There’s always a creative story for why.”
The social recession already raging in the United States has left many, from the youth to the elderly, in a more urgent to need to connect.
According to Eric Klinenberg, a New York University sociologist who has studied the way social isolation leaves older Americans vulnerable in emergencies, “a new period of social pain” is here caused by “the cost of social distancing that very few people are discussing yet.”
Social distancing, wearing masks, and washing hands are the only solution the people have to decrease the chances of contracting the coronavirus, which keeps claiming lives in the US and across the world.
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