Romance fraud costing people thousands of pounds- say Gloucestershire police
Victims of romance fraud are losing thousands of pounds.
In the past 13 months people in Gloucestershire have lost a total of £484,400, according to statistics on the NFIB Fraud and Cyber Crime Dashboard.
Romance scams are a type of fraud. Criminals look for vulnerable people often on dating sites and social media. After convincing the victim they have a genuine relationship, the fraudsters defraud them of their money.
Gloucestershire Constabulary say women aged 60-70 years old are most likely to report cases of romance fraud.
Detective Sergeant Simon Shaw said they can lose an average of £10,000 to the fraudsters.
He said: "Your typical victims are female aged early to mid-60s and lose on average £10,000."
However, police have found men are often victims but are less likely to report the crime. Cases involving male victims are often more severe.
Detective Sergeant Simon Shaw, said: "Intelligence work shows it's more likely the average victim is male. Potentially 90% of victims are male but they are very unlikely to report so they don't appear in the reporting figures."
"Male's aged 50-79 will lose an average of £80,000 per victim and will not report it."
He explained what to look out for.
"The most typical one is their abroad, their somewhere remote, their job is very secret, they can't tell you much about themselves or do video calls. Eventually they will start asking for money. Once that starts it won't stop."