WHILE VALENTINE’S DAY is the perfect time to celebrate love, it’s also a time when people can be taken advantage of through romance fraud.

Romance fraud is what it sounds like: a scammer using digital means to convince someone that they are romantically interested in them in order to gain their trust and manipulate them into sending money, sensitive financial information, or making financial decisions that will benefit the scammer.

It’s an especially cruel kind of scam that targets lonely people during a time when the season might be making them feel especially isolated.

Romance scammers operate across many mediums and platforms, and can contact someone through text message or email, but especially social media platforms or online dating apps. 

Paul Merriman, the financial adviser behind Ask Paul, has offered us several tips to minimise your risk of falling for romance fraud. While you may not feel at risk, it’s worth reading on so you better look out for anyone in your life who may be more susceptible to a romance scam. 

Paul Merriman of Financial Advice by AskPaul

“These fraudsters often pretend to be interested in long-term relationships but are only after financial gain,” says Merriman. He points to several red flags that can act as warning signs that someone you’re in contact with may in fact be a romance scammer. It’s important to look out for unusual behaviours such as:

• Avoiding meeting up in person or participating in a face-to-face video call
• Encouraging you to keep the relationship secret
• Unusually fast emotional intensity
• Requests for money or other financial requests.

Most importantly, however, it’s essential to remember that you should never send money or give your bank details to somebody you have never met, no matter how much you believe and trust them.

There are pre-emptive steps you can take sure to check out whether someone is who they say they are. Oftentimes, a simple Google search of someone’s full name will reveal whether they have pages on social media — such as Facebook or LinkedIn. On pages like this, look out for interactions with other verifiably real people.

If there is no evidence online that someone is who they say they are, you should be sceptical of what they are saying. 

Unfortunately, sometimes we don’t realise that we’ve been scammed until it’s too late. Even if you have been a victim of such a scam, though, there are still steps you can take to minimise the damage — starting by cutting off all contact. Other steps include:

• Document everything by saving conversations, transaction records, and any evidence of the scam.
• Report the scam to whatever platform the scam has taken place on (such as Tinder), An Garda Síochána, and the FraudSMART initiative
• Contact your bank: Inform your bank or financial institution to block transactions and monitor for further suspicious activity
• Do not hesitate to seek counselling in the aftermath, as fraud can be a very distressing thing to experience. It is nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about.

If you are worried about someone in your life who you believe may be at risk of a romance scam, there are gentle approaches you can take to help them out. Merriman recommends “starting with curiosity instead of criticism. You might say: ‘Online scams are getting so clever these days—what do you think about that?’”

Similarly, you can also offer personal stories, anecdotes you’ve heard from others, or news stories to help keep your loved one informed as to the nature of romance scams. 

The An Post Money Current Account comes with a host of different security features to add an extra layer of protection against fraudsters. Now, each time you make an online purchase you can generate a new Dynamic CVV code from the An Post Money app helping safeguard your hard-earned cash from online fraudsters.

For more information on Fraud & Scams, visit the Security Hub on the An Post website. 

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