CEL Solicitors’ Chairwoman, Jessica Hampson spoke with Radio City Live about the concerning rate of romance fraud.
With Valentine’s Day now behind us, we are emphasising the importance of remaining vigilant against potential romance scammers.
A romance scam involves a fraudster using deceitful tactics to establish a friendship or romantic relationship with someone online. The scammer will then manipulate their victims’ emotions and request large amounts of money under false pretences.
If you have been encouraged to make a bank transfer to someone you’ve only met online, then you might have been targeted by a romance scammer. Call us on 0808 273 0900 or complete an online form for assistance.
Over the last 13 months, Merseyside Police has received 139 reports of romance scams – resulting in losses of £2 million. However, this is likely just the tip of the iceberg as fraud is largely underreported in the UK. According to the Crime Survey of England and Wales, only 13% of fraud cases are reported to the police by victims. This is likely especially true for romance scams, where those affected often feel embarrassed about what’s happened.
At CEL Solicitors we receive over 1,000 scam enquiries, from across the UK, every week. This covers a wide range of scams types with those affected by romance scams often among the most reluctant to come forward. We’ve recovered over £70 million for fraud victims to date and would encourage people, regardless of the scam type, to seek help and support to get their money back.
Speaking to Radio City, Jessica Hampson, owner and Chairwoman of CEL Solicitors, said:
“It has a double-impact. It’s sad when any of our clients lose money to scams, but in romance scams not only do they lose the love of their life, they also lose a lot of money.
“The fraudsters are pulling on the heart-strings as well as the purse strings.
“We find that our clients lose the most money to romance scams and that’s because they drip-feed the payments. It will be £10 here, £100 there, which slowly builds up. Something might happen in the scammers’ ‘life’, such as an operation or a visa issue, and all of a sudden, it’s £5,000.
“It lasts so long that people don’t always realise how much money they’ve lost. We have clients that come to us and think they’ve lost £10,000 and when we’ve gone through the evidence, they’ve actually lost double that.
“We’ve had people lose millions.
“These scammers are extremely sophisticated, and they’ll go to all sorts of lengths. We’ve seen cases where the person has built up a relationship with the scammers ‘child’ and they use AI or a real child on the other end of the line. All of a sudden, the child gets ill, or they have to go to prison, or there’s visa issues that require financial support. They usually target really kind and generous people and build up that rapport.
“Sometimes they can go months, even years without asking for any money so those affected are heavily groomed.”
Tips for people who think they might be being scammed
Jessica continued, “If you feel like there’s something suspicious, the best thing you can do is sit down with someone that you trust and just talk about it. Get a second opinion from someone that is not as close to the issue and see if they think there are any red flags.
“You should always act on any concerns because if the person is genuine then you’ve got nothing to lose, but if they’re not genuine, then this could save you a lot of money and heartache.
“Always be suspicious if it’s a celebrity. If it is a celebrity, then please always think twice as to whether they would likely reach out in this way.
“Be wary if they won’t meet in person. It’s hard because a lot of the romance scams take place abroad making it difficult to meet in person. However, ask if you can Facetime them or call them, and if you’re still unsure do a reverse image search on Google to see if it really is them.
“Ultimately, do as much research as possible to satisfy yourself that this is the person you’re speaking to.
“Finally, the biggest red flag is if they ask for money – particularly if a tragedy has happened.”
Common tactics romance scammers use:
“We see a lot of scammers pretending that they’re in the army, or they’re a doctor abroad and then they get arrested, or there’s a visa issue, or there’s some sort of ill health. meaning suddenly, they need quite a lot of money.
“The scammers thrive on pressure, and making sure that you don’t think things through, encouraging you to make emotional decisions. If this really is the person that you love, then you can sleep on this, you can take time, you can go and speak to somebody. Even if it feels like it’s a dire emergency – their card has been cut off or they’ve been arrested – you can always get a second opinion.”
Commenting on the deceitful tactics employed by fraudsters, Jessica added:
“What’s really heart-breaking is the scammers actually read through the obituaries sometimes. They’ll prey on anyone who is maybe recently divorced, who has lost somebody, and they will absolutely prey on you, so be very careful about any dating sites that you’re on, about sharing any information that’s very personal to you early on in the relationship.
“You’ve got to appreciate that fraud is the number one crime. It makes up 40% of all crimes in this country so you are not alone and should speak up. There will be professionals that can help you every step of the way and deal with this and it’s actually a great thing because if you can share your story, you will encourage other people to do the same.
“What we absolutely believe is that fraud is still very under-reported. Even though it’s the number one crime in the country, we still do not think that people are discussing it because of the stigma associated with being scammed. There are a lot of reasons to speak up – one to obviously get your money, two is to report it and three is to help others as well.”
