The UK financial regulator has said that banks must do more to help romance scam victims.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) conducted an investigation into romance scams by reviewing six firms, including banks and payment firms.
The losses for victims ranged from £100 to more than £420,000.
Scam victim help varied from firm to firm according to the report.
The report found: “… some staff missed key opportunities. This included failing to identify red flags or challenge implausible customer explanations, which allowed fraudulent payments to continue.
In one case a fraud romance scam victim made 403 payments to a fraudster over the course of a year, resulting in losses of over £74,000. The firm accepted that it had missed opportunities to help the romance scam victim.
In March, 2024, Richardson Hartley Law which sits behind National Fraud Helpline, sponsored a Parliamentary report called Authorised Push Payment Fraud- Who Bears The Burden which identified that more payments were being made to romance scammers before banks were identifying the problem.
The FCA report found that 85% of all romance fraud cases originated online, including from social media and dating websites. In many cases fraudsters had built a relationship with the victim over weeks or even months,
The fraudsters tended to initially ask for small amounts of money from their victims partly to avoid being detected by the payment service providers.
It emerged that 15% of romance scam victims had been the victims of fraud before which shows how vulnerable they are.
Martin Richardson, a senior partner at National Fraud Helpline, said: “We welcome the FCA report. It is clear to us that many banks should and could be doing more to stop these frauds.
“Romance scam victims suffer terrible emotional trauma as a result of falling victim to these frauds.”
National Fraud Helpline has helped countless number of romance fraud victims recover their money.
Look at one example here: I was scammed out of £20,000 by AI-generated US Army colonel who promised me a briefcase full of £607k CASH
We have a dedicated Romance Fraud Page which outlines how to spot these scams, what to do if you become a victim and how we can help you.
