- Nationwide Building Society has warned that romance scammers are increasingly posing as savvy investors, moving away from traditional "emergency pleas" to lure victims with promises of fake profits.
- Reported cases of these scams increased by 5 per cent between 2024 and 2025, with women typically losing £4,100 per incident, significantly more than the £2,600 lost by men.
- Individuals over 55 accounted for 62 per cent of cases, while under-30s, despite representing only 6 per cent of incidents, bore 14 per cent of the total financial losses.
- Jim Winters, Nationwide's head of economic crime, stated that this trend reflects a wider rise in "blended romance investment fraud," where fraudsters use crafted personas and fabricated wealth to build trust before steering targets into high-loss schemes.
- The financial institution also highlighted that while their figures were released ahead of Valentine's Day, their data indicates romance scams typically spike in March and September.
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