Just in time for Valentine’s Day, online scammers are making this special day a costly lesson.
The Federal Trade Commission is warning of a new “sextortion” scam, in which fraudsters gather inappropriate photos of love interests and then threaten to share the photos with the victim’s social media contacts. The scammers often pretend to be young, pretty girls and target young boys from 10 to 17 years of age using video games and social media sites. They pressure victims to take explicit videos of themselves that show their face and share them.
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The cyber criminals threaten to release the videos of the minors if they don’t get money or gift cards.
“We’re seeing in Minnesota right now is a significant surge in a different kind of sextortion,” Minnesota Department Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson said. “It’s extortion that isn’t about sex. It’s straight up blackmail, financial extortion.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigations reportedly has received more than 7,000 sextortion reports involving minors in 2022.The Federal Trade Commission, meanwhile, revealed that these love scams cost roughly 70,000 Americans an estimated $1.3 billion in 2022, $1.3 billion from 79,000 Americans in 2021, $730 million from 54,210 people in 2020, and $493 million from 39,875 victims in 2019.
Cybersecurity firm Aura found 50% of Americans who used a dating app in the past five years reported experiencing catfishing. The average victim of the scam is $2,000.
Romance scams have evolved from online scammers targeting women for money to now even some men are the victims of stolen identity.
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An Orange County, California businessman has spent 12 years telling women that he is not in an online romantic relationship with them.
Larry Broughton, a boutique hotelier, has been combating overseas scammers pretending to be him, using stolen photos and videos of him in order to con women into believing he is romantically involved with them online. His office had to create a Facebook page “Larry Broughton Fake Profiles Awareness” to make women aware of the online scammers.
