VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — It's an issue targeting those who are seeking love and partners.
With Valentine's Day approaching, the FBI says romance scams are on the rise as people look to take advantage of victims looking for a connection.
One woman says she fell victim to someone she thought cared about her.
"It was about $800 I gave him. He had requested to be my friend, so I finally did just talk to him, and we went back and forth for a little bit," said the woman.
Their conversations started online through social media platforms like Instagram.
The victim did not want her identity revealed, but she said the conversations went on for nearly five months. She was under the impression he was in the military and stationed in Africa.
"I even opened up a bank account," the victim said.
They started to talk more and more on platforms like Instagram and Google Hangout.
She said he started asking her for gift cards and then it became a habit, but she added that she always had a feeling something wasn't right.
This led her to hire a cybersecurity expert to get down to the bottom of things.
"Collectively I was able to help her understand that the person that she was speaking with was in fact not a real person that she wanted to speak with, it was part of a scheme," said Len Gonzales, Cybersecurity Expert from Ally Cyber Investigations, LLC.
Cybersecurity experts like Gonzales say these individuals often work in groups overseas and use the same basic script to target seniors.
But in this case, the victim was in her 30s.
"Oftentimes people don't understand basic security measures and how to identify this type of activity," said Gonzales.
The FBI says since the pandemic hit, these online romance scams have become more prevalent.
In 2021, victims in the U.S. lost nearly $1 billion.
"You just think that it is something until you learn that most of the time it's not," the victim said.
For more information from the FBI on how to prevent romance schemes, click here.
