LOVE BITES
Sharp rise in crooks posing as admirers
ONE in 10 Brits have fallen victim to relationship scams – with men twice as likely to be suckered.
The number of crooks scamming lonely hearts out of money by pretending to want romance has soared by a fifth during lockdown.
A study found that almost a quarter of victims were targeted on social media, including Facebook and Instagram.
About the same number were emailed, while a fifth got duped on dating apps.
Some 14% were preyed on via text or Whatsapp, according to the poll of 2,000 adults by software firm Tessian.
Fellas are more easily hoodwinked by fake love interests, with 11% admitting they were taken in compared to just 5% of women.
Tim Sadler, co-founder of Tessian, said: “Throughout the pandemic, cyber criminals have capitalised on people’s vulnerabilities and situations to craft convincing social engineering attacks and phishing scams.
“The rise in romance fraud illustrates how they’re exploiting lockdown loneliness for financial gain.”
Another report, by UK Finance, found there was a 20% rise in bank transfer fraud linked to romance scams in 2020 compared to 2019.
And Action Fraud, the UK’S national reporting centre for fraud, said £68million was lost to such cons last year – another spike on previous figures.
Singletons are warned to never send cash or gifts to someone they have not met in person, to always verify web wooers via video call, be wary of unusual links or attachments and to refuse friend requests from strangers.