Be fraud smart

Published: 16 October 2025

Romance fraud

Criminals lie to gain your trust and build a relationship with you. They make everything about the romance feel normal but their aim is to get money or personal information.

How it happens

Romance fraudsters are experts at manipulating their victims.

They will usually:

• create a story that sounds believable and start the relationship in a normal way
• gain your trust over time
• invent a problem or situation where you may feel like you want to send money or gifts to help them
• isolate you from friends or family

Spot the signs

There are some signs to watch out for.

When they contact you

They may make conversation more personal to get information from you. But they may not tell you much about themselves that you can check or verify.

They may send a photo to earn your trust. This may be a real photo of them, or it could be stolen from someone else or created using technology. You can use an online tool to check if it's a stolen photo. Use Google or TinEye to do a reverse image search.

They may give you an excuse why they cannot meet you in person. The excuse may seem reasonable.

If you met them on a dating website, game or application, they may steer you away from there. Instead, they may prefer to talk by email, text and phone. Fraudsters often choose encrypted messaging applications, such as WhatsApp.