Overview
- The FBI reports a seasonal uptick around Valentine’s Day and cautions that grooming often escalates to investment pitches or sextortion, especially for younger users.
- The FTC logged more than 65,000 U.S. romance‑scam reports with $3 billion in losses, and a McAfee survey found one in four Americans encountered a fake or AI bot profile last year.
- Scammers now deploy AI images, voice and video deepfakes, push victims off dating apps to private channels, and direct them to bogus crypto or trading platforms.
- Nationwide and other UK banks report a shift from crisis pleas to “savvy investor” personas, with Action Fraud citing £106 million lost in 2024–25 and losses skewed toward women and over‑55s but rising for under‑30s.
- Financial experts call for behavioural detection, earlier contextual warnings, and cross‑industry intelligence‑sharing, citing UK reimbursement rules that heighten bank liability.