In 2024. the FBI reports, losses to crypto-asset-related investment frauds rose to $5.8 billion. A large part of that total is due to a sophisticated online confidence scam (a.k.a. romance or relationship frauds) operated by international criminal gangs. Fraudsters will contact you through wrong number texts, dating apps, or through commonly used social media platforms. Your new “friend” will be attractive and rich supposedly due to trading digital commodities or forex. After weeks of communications, the new friend will encourage you to invest as well. Initially, you will think you are making money, so you will invest more. Once you have nothing left to invest, your money and friend will disappear. The perpetrators of this scam refer to it as a “pig butchering” fraud.

Protect yourself by not sending money to people you have only met online and by reverse image searching the photo of your new friend.

You meet an attractive stranger online through social media, a dating site, or through a random text message, and before you know it, you’re texting every day but you never see each other in person or even on video chat. Your new friend is rich, attractive, travels, and likes everything you do. How did they become so wealthy? By trading, and they can show you how to do it too.

If you paid a scammer with a credit or debit card, you may be able to stop the transaction. Contact your credit card company or bank right away. Tell them what happened and ask for a “chargeback” to reverse the charges.

If you paid a scammer using a money transfer app, contact the company behind the app. If the app is linked to a credit card or debit card, contact your credit card company or bank first.