GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) – With Valentine’s Day this weekend, experts are warning that scammers are taking advantage of people looking for love. A scam prevention expert says these schemes are becoming more sophisticated and harder to detect.
Experts say romance scams tend to spike around holidays when more people are active on dating apps and social media.
“It’s not just Valentine’s Day, it’s around holidays, but specifically before and after Valentine’s Day, a lot of people are thinking about finding partners,” said Ron Kerbs, CEO of Kidas; a gaming and scam protection company. “They build trust with people only to convince them to wire money for suspicious activity or investment. It’s typically related to Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency scam.”
Kerbs said many of these scams follow a familiar pattern and can escalate quickly.
“There is a lot of love bombing; so, showing a lot of emotions and affection, and letting the other side know that they’re meant for each other,” said Kerbs. “And in a lot of the cases they try to avoid meeting in person. If the other side is not willing to meet in person, if the other side is trying to avoid being on camera, even if you saw them once or twice, it’s a red flag for a scam,” he continued.
Investigators are also seeing more organized and long-term financial schemes targeting older adults.
“One of the things that we’ve been noticing is the Pig Butchering scams. Those are scams typically targeting older individuals,” he said. “They target people via dating apps for older people, platforms like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, because they know that the monitoring and fraud prevention in those platforms is much weaker.”
Kerbs said that people may see more scams around this Valentine’s Day because of the rise of AI.
“It’s a network of sometimes hundreds of people working together in coordinated attacks, and they set up AI bots to start communicating with people,” he explained.
He said these bots are becoming more realistic and convincing with their ways of communicating through voices, video calls, and fake crypto investment platforms.
“The bot remembers all of the contacts. So, if you told the bot something once, they remember it and they use it against you. Those are some of the tactics that are relatively new with AI bots,” Kerbs stated.
If you believe you’re being targeted or have already sent money, experts say acting quickly is critical.
“Definitely report it on the dating site to make sure that no one else is being scammed,” he said. “If you’re communicating on WhatsApp or other social media, you can report the account on that platform. If you unfortunately send money, you should report it to the FTC.”
Experts say the biggest takeaway is to slow down, never send money to someone you haven’t met in person and report suspicious activity immediately to prevent others from becoming victims.
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