it's not unusual for singles to go online or use an app
to find love a swipe here, a swipe there, they're
hoping to find some sort of connection, but for some,
the romance is dead, especially when they realize
they've been scammed out of a whole lot of money. A new
report from the federal government details just how
much I hadn't dated in 20 years. So and he said
everything, oh, you're beautiful, you're just perfect
for me. Dorothy Harding was hoping to find love after
her divorce. She signed up for a dating site in 2019,
but instead she got set up with a cyber actor who
pretended to be someone else And conned her out of
$35,000. I kicked myself for a long time. I really
kicked myself about. Well, you know, you're smarter
than this. This should have never happened to you. Why
didn't you see any of the red, The red flags. Now
you're probably thinking this won't happen to me.
You've got awesome online skills. But you may be
surprised the Federal Trade Commission tells newsy in
2021. Americans lost $547 million dollars through
romance scams, much like the one that snagged harding.
I was heavily trained on phishing scams, email scams.
You know, but not once was it ever mentioned about
romance scams. Her scammer created a website with a
phony business. His fake identity had a linkedin page
and harding said he may have used Deepfake technolo
that manipulates sound and images to video chat with
her for a little while. He told her he worked as an
investment banker. So when he asked for money in
Bitcoin, she gave in, you never recover any money. It's
very, very rare. In a new report released thursday, t
FTC says more scammers are luring victims to phony
Cryptocurrency investment schem About 100 and $39
million were stolen that way last year. Although gift
cards are the most frequently reported payment met
Romance scams can happen to anyone at any age group and
some may be too ashamed to come forward. Usually the
scammers um look for people or find people who are in
their most vulnerable state. These scammers will try
and friend people by the thousands and the majority
won't fall for it. But some of them who are lonely at
the time are looking for somebody to talk to after her
mom's friend got scammed Kathy King co founded
advocating against romance scammers, an organization
aimed at bringing awareness to romance fraud for the
survivors. It all has to do with um the emotional and
psychological abuse to them. So um the money yeah of
course does matter to a point, but it's the loneliness
that it really affects them. Also part of this phony
love triangle can be a person whose identity was stole
U.S. Army Officer brian Denny has had his photographs
used on multiple occasions to scam Men and women out of
thousands of dollars. It's an emotional roller coaster
getting messages from people uh daily that I've never
met saying, hey, I want to confirm this is you or what
happened and why did you stop talking to me And You
know, it's uh, it's, it's like really breaking up with
somebody every single week. Denny's images and videos
are still being used in multiple fake profiles. He says
every week victims tracked him down after losing
thousands thinking he scammed them. One of the victims,
an 80 year old widow wasn't looking for love, but
rather wanted to help a soldier come home. She gave
away her life savings to take care of a guy sir that
she thought she knew and could trust. And that's
unfortunate that, that that's t kind of, that is a
typical victim who these guys kind of prey on both.
Denny and King are pushing for a tough federal
legislation to hold social media giants accountable to
delete fake profiles. You don't know people that you
only know online, you do not know them as we're harding.
She self published a book. If I can stop one woman from
falling for the scam, then it's well worth it. You know,
it's well worth the pain that I had to go through. If
you've been a victim of a love scam, you can report it
to the FBI at IC three dot gov. Perhaps the hard
part of all of this is that it's not just about the
money, but the heart is being played to kat Sandoval,
Newsy Chicago