Cybersecurity experts and suicide prevention advocates are raising awareness about an underreported issue: romance scams. Some scammers have devised methods so personally brutal and financially devastating that self-harm is a growing concern for victims.
found that victims reported losing a total of $3.3 billion in 2022, more than double the reported losses in 2021.
Jones’ scammer, who used the name Aranya, first messaged him on Facebook in November. He let his guard down when he saw that she was already friends with several of his Facebook friends. By March, Jones was spiraling. His credit had tanked. He couldn’t get his money out of the crypto site. He filed a report with the FBI but received no response. He estimated he had lost more than $250,000 and owed penalty taxes for cashing out his 401s and feared he wouldn’t be able to keep his house. On top of that, he felt humiliated and hurt that he could no longer trust Aranya.
For four months, a person whom Bleibtrey considered an online romantic partner convinced him to dump practically everything he had — his savings and both of his retirement accounts totaling around $500,000 — into a fake scheme that made it appear that he was making a fortune by investing in cryptocurrencies. He died by suicide soon after realizing the woman’s story wasn’t real and his savings were stolen.
“It’s not like a typical grief process when you have collectors calling you or coming after the estate or you’re dealing with court or trying to figure out taxes because, I mean, he owes a significant amount of taxes due to withdrawing from his IRA or Roth accounts,” she said. “You can’t just grieve.”
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