Romance and long-distance friendship scams
Someone warm and attentive arrives online, becomes important quickly and eventually has an emergency.
Red flags
If you hear or read any of these, stop and check with someone.
- They are always unable to meet or video call, with a good reason each time
- The job is overseas: an oil rig, the military, a construction contract, a hospital
- Affection arrives fast and strongly
- The first request for money is small and gets repaid, which builds trust
- They ask you to receive money and pass it on, which makes you part of the crime
- They discourage you from discussing them with family
What to do
- Ask for a video call. Repeated excuses are an answer in themselves.
- Do a reverse image search on their photographs, or ask somebody to do it for you.
- Tell one person you trust about them, and keep telling them.
- Never send money, gift cards or cryptocurrency to somebody you have not met in person.
- Never receive money on somebody else's behalf.
This one deserves more care than the others
People who lose money this way are not foolish. They are usually lonely, sometimes recently widowed, and they have been worked on patiently for months by somebody whose full-time job this is.
The shame afterward is the worst part, and it is why so much of it never gets reported.
What the pattern looks like
The relationship is built first and money comes much later, often only after a crisis is manufactured: a hospital bill, a customs charge, a frozen account, a plane ticket home that keeps falling through.
The requests do not stop after the first one. They escalate, because the money already sent makes it harder to walk away.
If this is happening to somebody you know
Confronting them with evidence usually fails. Being told they are being fooled makes people defend the relationship harder.
Staying in touch works better than being right. The moment they are ready to question it, they need somebody who has not made them feel humiliated.
Last updated Sep 7, 2026, 5:02 PM. Free to print and hand out. No permission needed.