Romance scam advice is often written as though every online dater faces the same risk in the same way. The data doesn’t support that — both UK and US figures show risk concentrated in specific age groups and life circumstances, for identifiable reasons, which means the advice worth prioritising differs depending on your own situation.
What UK data actually shows
UK romance fraud losses reached over £102 million in 2025 according to figures reported by City of London Police (which runs the national fraud reporting service), with individual victims losing an average of roughly £9,500. Critically, this loss isn’t evenly spread across age groups: the 50–59 age bracket recorded the highest total financial losses of any age group, at over £22 million, and almost half of all 2025 losses came from people aged 55–74 combined. Reporting patterns also show a gender split worth knowing: men submitted the largest number of reports, but women lost the most money overall.
What US data shows, for comparison
US figures tell a similar story at larger scale. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported that adults aged 60 and over lost $584 million to confidence and romance fraud in 2025 specifically, making it one of the largest fraud categories affecting older Americans, behind investment and tech support fraud. Losses to older adults across all fraud types combined rose roughly 60% year-on-year, with romance fraud specifically up around 30% for this age group.
Why midlife and older daters are disproportionately targeted
This isn’t random. A few identifiable factors, consistent with how these figures break down, make midlife and older daters more attractive targets to organised scam operations:
- Greater accumulated financial resources — savings, home equity, or pension assets that can sustain larger losses than a younger person’s finances typically could.
- Life transitions — divorce, bereavement, retirement or children leaving home can coincide with genuinely wanting new connection at exactly the point scammers are most effective at exploiting emotional need.
- Less exposure to current online dating conventions for those newer to dating apps later in life, making some of the platform-specific warning signs (stolen photo sets, inconsistent messaging patterns, common scam scripts) less immediately familiar than to someone who’s used these platforms for years.
Advice that matters more depending on life stage
If you’re midlife or older, newer to online dating
- Involve an adult child or trusted friend early, specifically asking them to sanity-check anything that involves money or a fast-moving relationship — not because your judgement is in question, but because an outside perspective consistently catches scam patterns that are hard to see from inside a relationship.
- Treat any request for money as an automatic pause point, regardless of how established or genuine the relationship feels by that point.
- Spend time learning the specific tactics (detailed in FTC and Action Fraud guidance) before you need them, rather than only after something feels wrong.
If you’re supporting a parent or older relative who dates online
- Raise the topic before there’s a specific concern, so it doesn’t feel like an accusation when you eventually ask about a particular relationship.
- Offer to do a reverse image search or basic verification together, framed as something you’d do for anyone, not as distrust specifically of their judgement.
- Know that reporting a suspected scam, even where a friend or family member has already sent money, can still help recover some funds if reported to the bank quickly, and helps Action Fraud or the FBI IC3 build a picture that can protect others.
The common thread across every age group
Despite the differences in scale and vulnerability, the core protective habit is identical whatever your life stage: never send money, gift cards or cryptocurrency to someone you haven’t met in person, verify identity through more than one method, and treat urgency as a warning sign rather than a reason to act faster. The data shows who scammers target most effectively — it doesn’t change what protects any individual dater.