Screen & Scams
How many people fall victim to romance scams every day?
Romance scams claim an estimated 648,000 victims worldwide, and the script is always the same. The scammer poses as a soldier deployed overseas, an oil-rig worker or a wealthy professional, spends weeks or months building emotional dependency, and only then asks for "emergency" money. By that point most victims already believe the relationship is real. In the US alone, 23,159 complaints were filed in 2025, up 29% from 17,900 the year before. The category now overlaps substantially with crypto investment fraud, known as pig butchering.
Roughly 1.23 victims every minute.
Source: FBI IC3 Annual Internet Crime Report 2025; FTC Consumer Sentinel Network.
Last checked: 18 October 2026
What this means for you
Romance scams do not target the naive. FBI data shows the most affected group is adults aged 35-64: educated, financially independent people who met someone online at a vulnerable moment. The mechanics bypass rational thinking by building real emotional attachment over weeks or months before money ever comes up.
At today's rate, roughly 2K people globally will become victims today. Each of them likely had weeks of daily contact with the person they trusted. The FTC's per-person figure for the US in 2025 is $2,020; in the most severe cases, losses exceeded $100,000.
The clearest warning sign: the person never agrees to a video call, or the call looks slightly wrong (AI-generated face). Any request to move the conversation off the dating platform, or any mention of money, gift cards, or cryptocurrency, is a red flag regardless of how long the conversation has been running.
The human cost: what the FBI and FTC data show
FBI IC3's 2025 Annual Report: 23,159 US confidence/romance complaints, up 29% from 17,900 in 2024
FBI / IC3FTC's full-year 2025 data: $1.48 billion in reported US romance scam losses (+22% year-on-year), a $2,020 per-person figure reported by the FTC
Federal Trade CommissionBy 2024, dating/romance scams had merged with crypto investment fraud ("pig butchering"), dramatically increasing per-victim losses
FBI / IC3In 2017, over 15,000 Americans reported romance fraud; in 2018 the number rose to about 18,500 (+20%), while reported losses rose about 70%, from $211M to $362M
FBI / IC3Cryptocurrency payments in romance scams grew 25× from 2019 to 2021 (FTC)
Federal Trade CommissionRomance scam victims are often contacted on non-dating platforms: social media (46%), gaming apps (28%), or professional networking sites
Federal Trade CommissionRomance scam victims vs. money lost, today
Romance scams are the highest-earning fraud type per victim that the FTC tracks. Both counters show the day's accumulating toll from two angles.
How romance scams evolved: from letters to AI deepfakes
- 2015FBI IC3 begins separately tracking romance/confidence fraud; rapid growth phase begins
- 201715,372 US victims, $211M in losses; IC3 issues first public warning
- 2020FTC reports $304M US losses, fourfold increase from 2016
- 2021FTC records $547M US losses, then-record; crypto romance fraud 25× 2019 levels
- 2022FTC: $1.3B US romance scam losses; pig-butchering accounts for majority of cryptocurrency investment cases
- 2024FBI IC3 2024: 17,900 US romance/confidence fraud complaints; crypto investment fraud losses $5.8B (includes pig-butchering with romantic contact)
- 2025FBI IC3: 23,159 US confidence/romance complaints (+29%); FTC confirms $1.48B in full-year US losses (+22%), a $2,020 per-person figure reported by the FTC
How romance fraud works: the psychology of manufactured love
The anatomy of romance fraud
Romance fraud operations run like businesses. Criminals in call centres in Nigeria, Ghana, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia research their targets' social media, mirror their interests, and build emotional intimacy over weeks. By the time the first money request arrives, many victims believe they are in a genuine relationship. Clinically, the pattern maps closely to coercive control: the same escalating trust-building, manufactured crises, and isolation that characterise abusive relationships.
The pig-butchering evolution
Since 2020, the dominant variation is "pig butchering": a romantic connection that leads into cryptocurrency investment fraud. The scammer introduces a supposedly lucrative platform, encourages increasingly large deposits, and vanishes once they decide the account is large enough to liquidate. IC3 logged $5.8 billion in US cryptocurrency investment fraud losses in 2024, with the majority traced back to initial contact via dating apps or social platforms.
How romance fraud grew from a niche crime to a global epidemic
Dating scam reports have risen sharply since 2017, with losses accelerating dramatically after cryptocurrency became the preferred payment method. Funds are virtually unrecoverable once transferred.
| Year | Rate | Est. per day | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 11/hr | 264 | Social media-facilitated fraud grows |
| 2021 | 35/hr | 840 | Pig-butchering scams emerge |
| 2024 | 57/hr | 1K | Pig-butchering dominates; crypto mandatory |
| 2025 | 74/hr | 2K | FBI IC3 confirms full-year complaint growth; FTC's parallel full-year losses hit $1.48B (+22%) |
| 2027 (forecast) | 123/hr | 3K | AI-generated personas and voice cloning make scams harder to detect, likely sustaining high victim growth |
Our conservative projection into the future
Official figures capture somewhere between one in six and one in eight actual cases by the FBI's own estimate. The true scale is already much larger than public statistics reflect. As AI reduces the human effort required to sustain these operations, the constraint on their growth weakens. There is nothing in the current data suggesting the gap between reported and actual victims will narrow.
In perspective
Globally, someone falls victim to a romance scam every 49 seconds.
The 2025 US data: 23,159 FBI complaints with $929.3 million in losses, about $40,100 per complaint. The FTC separately reports $1.48 billion in losses. In pig-butchering cases, individual losses run far higher.
What victim studies reveal
| Year | Finding | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | FBI IC3: 15,372 romance/confidence fraud complaints; $211M in losses | 15K US victims/year | FBI / IC3 |
| 2018 | FBI IC3: 18,493 complaints (+20%); $362M in losses (+70%) | 18K US victims/year | FBI / IC3 |
| 2020 | FTC: $304 million in romance scam losses in the US, fourfold increase from 2016 | 304.0M USD losses (US) | Federal Trade Commission |
| 2021 | FTC: $547 million in romance scam losses in US, record high; cryptocurrency payments nearly 5× 2020 level | 547.0M USD losses (US) | Federal Trade Commission |
| 2022 | FTC: ~$1.3 billion total romance scam losses in US; nearly 70,000 people reported losses; median individual loss $4,400 | 1.3B USD losses (US) | Federal Trade Commission |
| 2024 | FBI IC3 2024: 17,900 US romance/confidence fraud complaints; $672M+ in losses; crypto investment fraud (pig-butchering with romantic contact) adds $5.8B in separate category | 18K US complaints/year | FBI / IC3 |
| 2025 | FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report: 23,159 US confidence/romance complaints (+29% vs 2024); FTC's parallel full-year data confirms $1.48 billion in reported US losses (+22%), a $2,020 per-person figure reported by the FTC | 23K US complaints (FBI IC3, full-year 2025) | FBI / IC3 |
Frequently asked questions
- How many people fall victim to dating scams each year?
- FBI IC3's 2025 Annual Report recorded 23,159 US confidence/romance complaints, up 29% from 2024, while the FTC's parallel full-year data confirms $1.48 billion in reported US losses (+22%). Applying a ~12-16% reporting rate, the true US victim count works out to roughly 145,000-195,000/year; scaled to the global level, since the US is assumed to represent about a fifth of all cases, that's an estimated 725,000-965,000 victims worldwide.
- How do dating scams work?
- Scammers create convincing fake profiles using stolen photos (often of attractive professionals or military personnel). They establish contact, build emotional intimacy over weeks, then introduce a manufactured crisis requiring money, typically sent via wire transfer, gift cards, or cryptocurrency. Once money is sent, they typically ask for more before eventually disappearing.
- Who is most vulnerable to dating scams?
- Widowed, divorced, or lonely individuals tend to be disproportionately targeted. However, dating scams affect people across all demographics. The FBI notes victims include people of every education level, income bracket, and age group. The highest financial losses per victim typically occur in the 50+ age group.
Cite this rate
AnythingCounter derived rate, last checked October 2026: about 74 victims per hour (about 1,776 victims per day).
Method: Based on FBI / IC3 2025; Federal Trade Commission 2025, converted to a per-hour rate (daily total ÷ 24).
Suggested citation: AnythingCounter, "Dating scam victims," October 2026, https://anythingcounter.com/romance-scam-victims-per-day
Primary source: FBI / IC3; Federal Trade Commission.
How this number is calculated, and how much to trust it
The live rate of 74/hr scales the 2024 estimate (57/hr, from 17,900 US complaints) proportionally to the FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report's confidence/romance count of 23,159 complaints, up 29% year-on-year. That puts the conservative global estimate at roughly 648,000 victims/year, using the same ~12-16% US reporting-rate and ~20%-of-global assumptions applied in prior years. The FTC's full-year figure, $1.48 billion in reported US losses (+22%, published May 2026), confirms the same growth trend independently.
The primary sources are the FBI IC3 Annual Internet Crime Report 2025 and the FTC's Consumer Sentinel romance scam alert (May 2026), both covering the full 2025 calendar year. The FBI has tracked romance fraud as a distinct category since 2015. The adjustment for unreported cases draws on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Bureau of Justice Statistics).
Sources: see below. More detail on our methodology page.
Sources
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) Annual Reports 2000-2025 - FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book (annual, 2014-2024) - FBI IC3 Internet Crime Report 2024 - FBI IC3 Internet Crime Report 2025 - FTC Consumer Alert - New trends in reports of imposter scams (full-year 2025 romance scam losses: $1.48B, +22% YoY, $2,020 per person per FTC).
Worth a look... Romance scam money lost - Online scam victims - Phishing emails.