Online dating scams cost Brits over £106 million a year, and a dating app has called for more to be done to protect victims. Cherry Dating has warned that romance scams are worsening and no longer confined to Netflix-style cases.
This week’s arrest of Simon Leviev, better known as the “Tinder Swindler,” illustrates the “devastating impact of romance fraud”. Johanna Mason, CEO of Cherry Dating, has said that ordinary dating app users are increasingly at risk of being scammed, with Leviev’s tactics being used against thousands of users across the UK. Romance fraud is when people are defrauded into sending money to criminals who go to great lengths to gain their trust and convince them that they are in a genuine relationship. On most mainstream platforms, anonymity and minimal verification make these scams easy to execute and difficult to prevent. According to Crimestoppers, £106 million was lost to romance scams in 2024, a 9% increase on the year before, with an average of £11,222 per person over 9,449 reports.
Around 38% of people who met someone online last year were asked for money, according to UK Finance, and more than half complied. While the average request was £345, some victims were pressured to send more than £1,000.
Romance fraud remains a high-risk fraud, impacting those targeted financially, emotionally, and psychologically. Victims of romance fraud often suffer significant financial losses, but also face the psychological and emotional impact of losing a partner and support system after having been manipulated and deceived in such a callous, calculated way.
Johanna Mason, CEO of Cherry, has called for dating apps to go further – starting with cross-platform collaboration and data-sharing to tackle serial offenders.
She said: “The issue is certainly difficult to police, and at Cherry, we strongly advocate for apps to collaborate more closely by sharing data on banned profiles, ensuring scammers are effectively blocked from simply moving onto other platforms”.
According to Crimestoppers, there are some main ways to spot the signs of romance fraud, such as someone declaring their love for you too quickly and making up excuses as to why they can’t meet in person or video chat (such as being in the military and stationed overseas).
Others include them trying to move conversations off the platform you met on quickly, asking to keep the relationship private and not tell loved ones, and having ‘too perfect’ pictures (these can be reverse image searched), and asking for financial help for a time-critical and often emotional emergency (and getting defensive if you decline).