Romance Scam (Payment Stage)

Romance scams involve criminals building a fabricated emotional relationship online — often over weeks or months — before making financial requests. The payment stage is the culmination of extensive grooming: the fraudster presents a crisis (medical emergency, business deal gone wrong, travel costs to meet the victim) that only money can resolve.

Payments demanded in romance scams are typically push payments that are hard to reverse: wire transfers, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or international money transfers. The amounts escalate over time, with each payment justified by a new emergency. Victims may have sent tens of thousands before realising the relationship was entirely fabricated.

Red flags include: an online relationship with someone who never video-calls convincingly, accelerated declarations of love, detailed crisis stories requiring financial help, and requests for secrecy about the financial transfers. If an online partner asks for money, this is almost always fraud — regardless of how genuine the relationship feels.