Online dating scammers bilk more money each year. A bipartisan bill seeks to stop them at the source.
A 66-year-old single woman CBS News calls “Sue” has saved more than $2 million for her retirement and hopes to travel the world, but she hasn’t stopped looking for love.
“It’s like, man, I would really do better if I had a male partner,” Sue said.
So she turned to the dating app Match.com and soon connected with a man using stolen photos who claimed to be a British private equity investor and called himself Santos.
After weeks of non-stop romance, Santos said he needed help renewing his professional license and asked Sue for $40,000.
“I was in a position where I could help a guy. Why not? I never thought he would steal or Scam. There’s no excuse,” Sue said.
But from that point on, Sue says, it was full steam ahead into an orchestrated, relentless campaign of lies, deception and emotional abuse that wiped out $2 million of her savings.
More than 64,000 Americans kidnapped, more than $1 billion in losses romance scam Sales last year were $500 million, double what they were four years ago, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
About half of the people are using dating site Said they met someone who had tried scam Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colorado, said tech platforms need to do a better job of protecting users. Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., echoed those concerns.
Two lawmakers have introduced the Online Dating Safety Act, which would require dating apps like Match.com to notify users if they have been exposed to a fraudulent account.
“No matter how advanced you think your ability to understand what’s out there is, they’re going to deceive a lot of people and we really have to face that,” Varada said.
The bill passed the House without a vote in the Senate, so they will try again in the next Congress.
Sue, meanwhile, said she would not have lost all her money if she had known the man contacting her was a known scammer.
Match Group said in a statement that it has begun rolling out fraud notifications and will work with senators to finalize the bill.
Although the new law came too late for Sue, she didn’t stop fighting.
When asked why she told her story, she said: “Because I don’t want anyone to go through the hell that I went through. I don’t want anyone to fall into the hell hole that I dug with the help of a criminal.” “
