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Watch out for romance scams Online

Criminals seek crupto, cash after building trust

By: Betty Lin-Fisher
USA Today

..... Kate Kleinet wasn't looking for romance, but something about the handsome man in medical scrubs pulled on her heartstrings. The widow accepted the Facebook friend request form "tony" who said he was a surgeon working for the United Nations in Iraq.
..... Tony was quick to profess his love, but he took months to build up his story and get his two preteen children, who were in boarding school, to email Klinert, 71, and ask if they could call her "mom."
..... By the time the daughter was sick from COVID-19 during the 2020 lock down and needed money, Kleinert was emotionally invested in the young girl, her brother and her father.
..... Over the next four months, the Pennsylvania woman would drain her savings and retirement funds to send Tony and his kids $39,000 in gift cards and cryptocurrency.
..... She was heartbroken when she realized that it was all a con and followed the patterns of other romance scammers looking to take advantage of vulnerable singles ultimately draining their finances.
..... Kleinert and consumer advocates are sounding the alarm to warn others about romance scams ahead of Valentine's Day.
..... Romance scams are designed to establish a relationship with someone - often based on what that person has shared on social media or on a dating site - to develop trust and eventually exploit that person for financial gain. the scammer eventually gets their target to send money by saying they or a family member need financial help, or by offering a lucrative investment opportunity.
..... In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission reported losses to romance scams topped $1.14 billion among 64,003 victims. Full 2024 numbers have not at been released, but for the first nine months of 2024, 42,300 victims reported a cumulative losses of $823 million, an FTFC spokesperson siad.
..... Those numbers are likely vastly underreported, said Erin West, who retired after 26 years as deputy district attorney in Santa Clara County, California, including eight years prosecuting high-tech crime. Not all victim,s will report that they've been scammed, often beaus they're embarrassed, she said.
..... West's Operation shamrock educates the public, law enforcement and banking officials on the danger of pig-butchering scams. That refers to a type of scam, including romance schemes, where multinational crime rings target victims to "fatten them up" (build trust) and then use sophisticated methods "to take every penny the victim has," West said.
..... While some victims can recover some of their losses, most don't get their money back. Often the scammer asks to be paid in cryptocurrency, which is even harder to recoup, West said.
..... Unfortunately, West sad, most people who are lured into a romance scam or other similar scam are "under a spell that has been cast over them by using really sophisticated psychological tricks, so it's very difficult once you're in this to understand you're in this."
..... that;s what happens to Klieinert. Her scammer asked for small amounts of money that eventual grow larger. It started with his sick child, then he needed money for a better Wi-Fi signal to talk to Kleinert. Eventually, he needed money to fly to Philadelphia to be with her.
..... Even when Tony didn't show up in Philadelphia, and an attorney called Kleinert to say he'd been detained and needed $20,000 for bail, she was still too infatuated to recognizing she was being conned, she told USA Today.
....,. Kleinert had emptied her savings account, her 401(k) and her late husband's life insurance policy.
..... She started to realize something was wrong when she was told she could not visit Tony and that he would be transfered to a facility in Oklahoma. He also called begging her for money.
..... She eventually cut him off and had to seek financial help from her sister.
..... Kleinert is not alone. the sophistication of scammers is growing and it will get worse.
..... "We live in an age of AI-powered fraud and scamming, so it's the sad reality," said Anusha Parisutham, senior director of platforms and artificial intelligence at Feedzai, a company that helps finical institutions reduce fraud. AI is used to personalize messages after bots have scanned social media sites to gather information on the potential victims. Then AI can be sued to reach out to multiple people in an automated manner, she said.
..... AI can also used to clone or alter photos and voices to appear real when they aren't, Parisutham said.
..... But though the technology is getting more sophisticated and intuitive, Parisutham also believes that security and defensive moves to thwart scammers will improve, too, "so it's a continuous game of chess."
..... Match Group, which owns more than 20 dating app platforms including Match.com , Tinder, Hinge, OK Cupid and Plenty of Fish, sues a wide range of technology to proactively detect scams, said Yoek Roth, vice President of trust and safety for Match Group.
..... "We sue advanced AI and automation to try to catch bad actors as they're registering," Roth told USA Today. If the bad actor get through the first screening, once they are active, more than 90% of "content moderation" actions that retaken happen automatically without a user needing to report scam activity, he said.
..... The company has also built coalitions and launched the Tech Against Scams Coalition to bring together members of dating apps. social media operators, financial services and cryptocurrency companies to work together and shear practice that work, Roth said.
..... The Match dating apps also urn scam awareness campaigns to encourage people to keep their communications within the dating app for protection. Often,scammers will suggest the conversation get moved to another communication method, which can't be tracked, Roth said.
..... Kleinet shares her romance scam story as much as she can, speaking to consumer groups and trying to warn others.
..... "I would like to stop someone else from falling for the same thing," she said. "It's devastating."

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