AI romance scams are on the rise. Here’s what you need to know.

Happy Valentine's Day. Don’t allow romance scams – which ones increase around the holiday and are with one All-time high – Break your heart.

These scams cost Last year alone, Americans spent $3 billion. This is almost certainly an undercount, considering special restraint to report that they fell for such tricks.

Many love scams fall under the term so-called fraud “Pig slaughter” scamwhere fraudsters build relationships with victims over long periods of time and gain their trust. The nickname is a crude reference to the fattening of a pig before slaughter – and they go all out, repeatedly trying to extort money from the target. These scams exist between 2020 and 2024 cheated more than $75 billion from people around the world.

Now AI is making these scams more and more accessible, affordable and profitable for fraudsters. In the past, romance scammers had to have a good command of the English language if they wanted to scam Americans effectively. Accordingly Fred HeidingAccording to a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Kennedy School who studies AI and cybersecurity, AI-powered translation has completely eliminated this barrier—and fraudsters now have millions more potential victims at their disposal.

AI is fundamental change the scalewhich serves as a force multiplier for scammers. A single person who once managed a few scams at once can run 20 or more at once with these toolkits, said Chris Nyhuis, the cybersecurity company's founder Alerttold me via email. AI-powered scams are clearly more profitable than conventional systems, and they are also becoming increasingly cheaper and easier to operate.

On the dark web, scammers can purchase romance scam toolkits with customer support, user reviews, and tiered pricing packages. These toolkits include pre-built fake personas with AI-generated photo sets, conversation scripts for each stage of the scam, and deepfake video tools, Nyhuis told me. “The qualification barrier to entry has essentially disappeared.”

I wondered whether love cheats might automate themselves out of a job, but Heiding of the Kennedy School told me that “it's often just an extension, not full automation.” Many of the scammers, with at least 220,000 people, are also victims themselves caught in fraud centers in Southeast Asia and forced Cheating, facing goals terrible abuse if they refuse. The use of AI means “the crime syndicates.” [who run these centers] will probably just have better profit margins,” Heiding said.

At the moment, there is a human behind the scenes of the scams, even if it is just an AI agent. But otherwise it is completely automatable. Heiding told me that AI isn't much better than human romance scammers right now, but the technology is evolving quickly. In 2016, AlphaGo was launched by Google DeepMind hit the world's best human Go player in a landslide. Human forecasters believe AI has advanced too far surpass their ability to predict the future very soon.

“I wouldn't be surprised [if] “In a few years or a decade we will have AI fraudsters who simply think in completely different patterns than humans,” Heiding said. “And unfortunately, they’re probably going to be really, really good at convincing us.”

What does love have to do with it?

Love scams are unique: They target a basic human need for love and connection. You may have heard that we are in one Loneliness epidemicofficially explained from the US Surgeon General in 2023, with Health risks comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes per day. Social isolation is linked to higher rates of heart disease, dementia, depression and even premature death, according to reports 1 in 6 people Worldwide are lonely. And lonely people are the main targets.

Fraudsters are sending the first AI-generated messages to potential victims. Over time, they use lovebombing techniques to convince them that they are in a romantic relationship. Once trust is established, they make requests for funds via methods that are difficult to recover, such as gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency. They will often invent crises require urgent transfers. They might ghost the victim after achieving their goals or continue the scam to get more out of them.

Using AI romance scams Deepfake video calls“cheap fake“Social media profiles and Voice cloning Technology like other AI-powered scams to lure people. But according to Nyhuis, they are “particularly dangerous because of what they exploit. Phishing exploits urgency; tech support scams exploit fear. Romance scams exploit love, which can cause people to think irrationally or ignore their gut feeling that something is wrong.”

Older adults often experience and are socially isolated often targeted from romance scammers. Retirement and grief can create circumstances that intentionally manipulate scammers and make victims feel seen and cared for even though they are steal their savings and the houses in which they want to spend their retirement. But anyone can be fooled by these scams. Although Generation Z are digital natives, they are three times more vulnerable Online scams are often more vulnerable than older generations because they spend so much time online, although this is usually the case – and here's why lose – less money than older victims.

Here's something else that will break your heart: you're more likely to fall victim to a scam targeted again. Scammers create profiles of their targets and sometimes add them to “dunce lists” shared across criminal networks. The likelihood of becoming a victim of other crimes is also higher victimized againand becoming a victim of a romance scam is not a moral failing on the part of the target.

But you have to beware of this because the vast majority of fraud victims will not get their money back. About 15 percent of Americans have done so lost money to online romance scams, and only one in four were able to recover all of the stolen funds.

Romance scams thrive in shame and secrecy. Victims are sometimes blackmailed and told that if they confide in people in their lives, the scammers will reveal sensitive information. Sanchari DasAssistant Professor and AI Researcher at George Mason University, and Ruba Abu SalmaLecturer in Computer Science at King's College London, receive a Google Academic Research Award to investigate AI-powered romance scams targeting older adults in 13 countries. Her research examines how AI tools can amplify traditional fraud tactics and how families and communities can better support victims.

The researchers are building connections with gerontological societies and aim to develop educational tools to support victims of AI romance scams. There is already a lot of information about prevention, but very little guidance for victims about what to do next.

How so many peopleI met my partner online. I'm grateful we started dating in the late 2010s, before that explosion of AI-generated profiles on apps and dating sites.

AI is getting better and better at tricking people across the board. It has improved massively Render handsa formerly reliable tell for deepfakes, and he learns from his mistakes. “As these technologies improve, traditional tamper detection signals are no longer reliable,” Das said. “At the same time, we use AI to counter these threats by detecting fraud patterns, predicting new tactics and strengthening protections. The goal is to build systems and communities that are as adaptable as the technology itself.”

Society is also becoming increasingly desensitized to AI romances. A study found that nearly a third of Americans have had an intimate or romantic relationship with an AI chatbot. The 2013 film Herin which a man falls in love with an AI expressed by Scarlett Johansson is set in 2025. It wasn't too far off the mark.

AI chatbots are targeted designed to keep people engaged. Many use a “freemium” model, where basic services cost nothing but charge a premium for longer conversations and more personalized interactions. Some “companion bots” are designed to encourage users to make deep connections. Although people know that the “significant other” is AI, these are companion bot apps sell User data for targeted advertising and their privacy policies are not transparent. Isn't this also a kind of intimacy fraud, a way to deprive lonely people of resources for as long as possible?

There are steps you can take to protect your heart, your wallet, and your peace of mind. It seems obvious, but refusing to send money to someone you haven't met in person will nip a romance scam in the bud. You can request spontaneous video calls and ask the person on the other end to do something random; Deepfakes still have problems with “unwritten” actions.

“Be suspicious of anyone you have never met in person – this is the only safe approach in a digital world full of scams,” says Konstantin Levinzon, co-founder of the free VPN service provider PlanetVPNsays a press release. “If someone you meet on a dating site seems suspicious, do a reverse image search to check if the images have been stolen from other sources. And if the conversation involves money or someone asks for personal information, leave the conversation immediately.”

You can also use a VPN to disguise your location, as scammers may track users' location and try to personalize their scams based on the target's city or country. If you are scammed, report to the FBI early Internet Crime Complaint Center, Federal Trade Commissionand your bank increases the chances that you can recover the stolen funds. Several non-profit organizations Offer Support for victims of romance fraud.

“No matter how alone you feel right now, no matter how embarrassed you are, you will recover from it and one day you will look back and see how you did it,” Nyhuis said. “These scammers are good at destroying hope. Don't let them take your hope away.”