“My goal was to get money,” said Adekunle Adedeji, a former romance scammer from Nigeria who goes by the name Chris.
While Adedeji, 23, did not pose as a “Nigerian prince,” he did tap another long running internet fraud: the romance scam.
Using someone else’s photos found on Instagram and pretending to be an American employed by the U.S. military, Adedeji lured women on a dating site and convinced them to send him money. “I stole $20,000 from one woman,” he said.
More from Personal Finance:
When it comes to love, this much debt is a deal breaker
How these couples overcame financial infidelity
Nev Schulman from MTV’s ‘Catfish’ explains how to stay safe
His ploy eventually unraveled when she discovered his photos were fake, he said. But his guilty conscience also played a role. Adedeji now works with online dating investigation site SocialCatfish.com to educate others on such scams.
Why romance scams are on the rise
Despite an increased awareness from TV series like MTV’s “Catfish: The TV Show” and Netflix’s “The Tinder Swindler,” reports of romance scams hit a record high in 2021, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Losses totaled $547 million for the year, up nearly 80% from 2020, the FTC said.
“It really spiked with the pandemic because people were stuck at home and had to go online to date,” said David McClellan, president of SocialCatfish.
Since 2017, victims have reported $1.3 billion in losses — more than any other kind of fraud that the FTC tracks.
In a common…
