How to protect yourself from romance scams

How to spot a scammer: a forensic linguist, a fraud detective and a former victim - all from BBC Three’s Hunting the Catfish Crime Gang - share their advice.

When Cecilie Fjellhøy gave £200,000 to her scammer, she says, she trusted him completely.

Cecilie says he’d spent months building up her trust - and he’d led her to believe they were in a relationship, so she took out several loans to help him.

Six years later, she’s still battling the effects of that traumatic event. “My future is kind of ruined in the financial sense,” she says. “Also, I’m still going to therapy.”

It also fuelled her to support other fraud victims through LoveSaid - a fraud centre and think tank she co-created with Anna Rowe, a former romance fraud victim and activist.

Anna and Cecilie are two of the frontline experts fighting against romance scams, and are featured in BBC Three’s documentary Hunting the Catfish Crime Gang.

The documentary follows 30-year-old entrepreneur James Blake, whose Instagram images are stolen and used in romance scams to con people out of tens of thousands.

Through the documentary, James embarks on an investigation to try and gain control of his image, but instead he uncovers a modern-day crime wave.

Some people might hear Cecilie's story and wonder how she could fall for such a scam. Others may ask, how can I stop it from ever happening to me?

In 2023, scams are everywhere. Around 40 million adults were targeted by scammers in the first three months of this year alone, according to Citizens Advice.

Dr Elisabeth Carter, a criminologist and forensic linguist, investigates how fraudsters use language to scam people.

“They intentionally make victims feel as if they’re the ones making decisions that are reasonable and rational, so as not to raise alarm bells,” she explains. Scammers do this by making themselves seem very vulnerable, she says. “So if we're talking about romance fraud, for example, they'll say things like, ‘Oh, I'm new on this dating site.’”

Perpetrators will often say they’ve been scammed before, too. In the case of Cecilie’s scammer, who was the subject of Netflix’s 2022 documentary The Tinder Swindler, he said dangerous people were after him and were determined to hurt him. Cecilie’s scammer has not been convicted for the allegations she made against him. 

Dr Carter says this behaviour has similarities to domestic abuse and coercive control.

Rebecca Mason is a fraud detective who specialises in romance scams. One red flag that’s consistent across these kinds of scams, she says, is that fraudsters are reluctant to meet you.

Analyse the messages you receive, she says. Look out for inconsistencies in how they speak, or if they forget small details often, because you might be speaking to multiple people. Romance scammers are often an organised crime gang, she explains.

Scammers will rarely explicitly ask for the money outright, as this would raise alarm bells, says Elisabeth. “But they will say things like, ‘I'm feeling sick right now. This bill is coming in, I don't know what to do,’” which will trigger a visceral response in victims to help.

She also warns people to be careful when sharing their personal address. In the beginning of a new relationship, someone sending you chocolates and flowers might feel flattering, but the reality is if they’re a fraudster, they can exploit that information or even make threats further down the line.

Isolation is key, says Rebecca: “Romance scammers will work hard to create a Romeo and Juliet-type situation, like it’s us against the world.” They’ll try to demonise sources of support, whether that’s family, friends, the police or the bank and say things like: “the bank just wants to keep your money”.

They’ll also turn victims’ attempts to protect themselves into something negative, like a betrayal of trust or claim the victim doesn’t love them enough.

Rebecca encourages everyone to be a detective when it comes to dating. She recommends doing a Google image reverse search of their pictures, or using an app called Face Check ID, which pulls up all the profiles associated with an image. If someone has little or no digital footprint, be wary, she says.

While romance scams are one of the scariest forms of fraud because of the intimate nature of them, they aren’t the only types. For lots of us, phishing emails or scam texts claiming to be a postal delivery service come through daily.

Elisabeth has several tips for these types of scams, firstly: “Be curious about every interaction.” As humans, lots of us operate on autopilot, she adds. It’s this kind of approach which can miss things, like the ‘bank’ ringing you and asking questions it wouldn’t normally, or the delivery service asking for your bank details.

If you get a call from someone claiming to be your bank, you can hang up and dial 159, as you would 111 for the NHS. The number is run by Stop Scams UK, external, a collaboration of most banks including Monzo, Natwest and Barclays, and ensures that if you ring the line you’ll be directed to your bank and can feel confident you’re speaking to them and no one else.

All experts encourage people to report fraud, and even report on behalf of a friend or family if they’re concerned for them. “Fraud is always a crime that's really, really underreported, with only around five to 15% of victims ever reporting,” says Elisabeth.

Part of the reason lots of people don’t come forward when it comes to scams is because of such stigma, says Cecilie.

“We need to treat them as victims. That's what they are.”

Want to protect yourself against scams? Here is a summary of the experts' advice:

• Be wary of someone you're dating who is reluctant to meet up.

• Analyse your messages to check you're not talking to more than one person.

• Don't share personal details like your address or workplace.

• Report any type of scam, as it will help officials protect others.

You can watch Hunting the Catfish Crime Gang on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer.

And find out more about Be Scam Safe - a joint effort between BBC programmes, Stop Scams UK, and major UK organisations, in an attempt to provide you with advice to spot, and avoid scams - here.