How to catch romance scammers ahead of Valentine’s Day

LEXINGTON, Ky. (ABC 36 NEWS NOW) — Extravagant gifts, flashy profiles and love bombing are all red flags to look out for this Valentine’s Day.

“One of the rules of thumb that I’ve discovered is that if it’s a sad story that they’re giving you in order to get money, it’s often a scam story,” Lieutenant Jesse Palmer with the Property Crimes Unit of the Lexington Police Department said.

This Valentine’s Day, police are warning people to beware of romance scammers.

“Social media people are preying on people’s loneliness or sense of belonging so they may reach out and just start a conversation,” Palmer said.

He says these conversations often start off with lots of compliments and talk about the future.

“There will be some sort of hook or emergency on the perpetrator’s part where they need the money,” he said.

Which some people end up falling for. If you report the fraud to authorities quickly, they should be able to freeze your assets.

“But often times these are not reported in a timely manner just due to the embarrassment of the victim,” Palmer said.

He says there are ways to avoid these scammers. For example, if the profile looks fake try to do a reverse image search. If they keep making up excuses on why they can’t meet up with you in person, they’re probably scamming you.

He says while these may seem obvious, these criminals have scammed a lot of people out of their money.

“According to the Federal Trade Commission in the United States the financial loss was $1.14 billion,” he said.

That was just in one year, so if you’re on the lookout for love, also be on the lookout for loss.