Romance fraud: how to avoid damage to both your heart and your wallet

A number of news articles in the run-up to Valentine’s Day this year warned against so-called ‘romance fraud’.

BBC News reported on 13 February that a serial fraudster, Raymond McDonald, was back on a dating app, ‘looking for his next victim’, ‘within days of being released from his seventh prison term for romance fraud’. A further article on 14 February cited a public alert from the Thames Valley Police, warning people to be cautious and calling romance fraud a ‘form of emotional exploitation that can be deeply damaging, not just financially but psychologically’.

Although we often think of sensationalist romance fraud, like the infamous ‘Tinder Swindler’ featured in the popular Netflix documentary from 2022 who stole millions of dollars from his victims, sadly romance scams are becoming increasingly common; particularly in circumstances where technology like AI, video and voice filters are providing scammers with an increasingly sophisticated toolkit to convince victims to part with their hard-earned funds.

What is romance fraud?

Romance fraud falls under the broader category of ‘authorised push payment’ (APP) fraud, which involves a victim being dishonestly persuaded to make payments to accounts controlled by a fraudster. In the majority of romance fraud cases, fraudsters build a relationship with the victim over a period of weeks and even months, gradually gaining their trust before requesting money.

Concerningly, Santander reported in 2025 that nearly a third of Brits (29%) would offer financial help to a romantic partner they have known for less than six months. Scammers know, and take advantage of this.

The most common types of romance fraud include:

1. catfishing – where the fraudster creates a fake online persona or uses pictures of somebody else on their social media profile(s);
2. investment scams – building trust over a long period of time, following which the victim will be asked to invest in, say, fake cryptocurrency;
3. love bombing – showering the victim with praise, attention and even gifts to gain their trust, then removing it without any warning, leaving the victim confused and willing to do whatever they can to ‘earn back’ that affection;
4. inheritance, medical or emergency cash requests – asking for the victim’s help to support themselves financially, deal with an emergency or pay for expenses (such as legal fees, deposits or travel expense) because their inheritance is held in a foreign bank account; and
5. blackmail or ‘sextortion’ scams – pretending to be a romantic interest, convincing the victim to send compromising photographs and then threatening to send them to family members or friends of the victim unless they pay.

What is the impact of romance fraud?

According to Action Fraud, an estimated £106 million was lost by victims of romance fraud in the UK in the past financial year, and a 2025 report from Barclays demonstrated a 20% year-on-year increase in the number of these frauds being reported.

The City of London Police also estimated last year that victims sustain an average loss of £11,222 – although since victims often do not report romance fraud due to the perceived shame and stigma attached to falling prey to such schemes, the true scale of the loss is likely to be significantly higher. This marks a significant increase from previous years: between January and June 2024, for instance, romance scams had an average of approximately 11 payments per case. In July 2024, Barclays produced data showing that, on average, women who were victims of romance fraud lost £8,900, and men lost an average of £3,500 (although men made up nearly 60% of victims). That same report illustrated that, statistically, the group most likely to fall victim to romance fraud are those aged between 55 and 64.

What can victims do if they have lost funds to a romance scam?

Until recent times, it was challenging for victims of APP fraud to recover their lost funds because they authorised the payments out of their own account (as opposed to fraudsters extracting money from accounts without the account holder’s direct involvement). The 2023 Supreme Court case of Philipp v Barclays Bank UK plc [2023] UKSC 25 (in which members of the Penningtons Manches Cooper banking litigation team acted on behalf of the Consumers’ Association, Which?) largely closed the door on common law claims being brought by APP fraud victims against their own banks or payment service providers (PSPs), holding that the ‘Quincecare duty’ – not to act on a customer’s instructions because of suspected fraud – has no application where an individual customer gives an unambiguous instruction to make a payment from their own account.

Some more recent cases, however (such as Santander v CCP Graduate School [2025] EWHC 667 (KB) and Hamblin v Moorwand [2025] EWHC 817 (Ch)) have somewhat re-opened the door to these types of cases against banks and PSPs. For more information, please click here to read the team’s April 2025 article on the impact of the Santander case.

In addition, new rules that came into effect on 7 October 2024 require banks and PSPs to reimburse victims of APP fraud up to £85,000 in certain circumstances, namely:

1. if they sent money to another account within the UK (ie not internationally);
2. if the transfers were made via (i) Faster Payments (which is what one typically uses to send free, quick bank transfers) or (ii) CHAPS (which is usually used for high value transfers, guaranteed to arrive the same day – CHAPS payments are covered by an equivalent rule set out by the Bank of England, but the application is effectively the same); and
3. if they are not found to be complicit in the fraud or ‘grossly negligent’ (which is a very high bar and does not include simply falling for the scam).

Under this mandatory reimbursement regime, if the above criteria are fulfilled, the bank or PSP must refund the lost funds (up to the £85,000 limit) within five working days of the claim being made. It is important to note that claims are subject to a 13-month time limit after the last payment was made to the scammer, meaning it is critical for the bank or PSP to be notified as soon as possible.

How has the mandatory reimbursement regime affected the banking sector?

Recent data from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) shows that, when customers challenge a bank or PSP’s initial refusal to reimburse a fraud claim (including APP fraud), the ombudsman is frequently finding in favour of complainants and has overturned the bank’s original decision in around 30% of cases.

The financial impact of the mandatory reimbursement regime – and the potential reputational damage of a major bank failing to ‘protect’ its customers from fraud – has led to a number of banks and PSPs implementing additional measures to enhance their fraud detection and prevention policies.

One particularly interesting development is the implementation of policies to reduce the risk of re-victimisation, given that the FOS’s review of romance fraud victims found that, in 15% of cases, the customer had previously been a victim of this type of fraud (or another type of APP fraud). Measures brought in by some banks and PSPs include (a) regular check-ins following the closure of a fraud case, (b) adding markers to accounts to highlight past fraud concerns, (c) implementing enhanced monitoring, and (d) making appropriate safeguarding referrals. In case of significant concern (such as victims who are deemed to be particularly vulnerable to fraud), PSPs can apply temporary account restrictions, including limiting the ability to add new beneficiaries, setting daily transfer limits, issuing new cards or login details, and temporarily blocking online banking access, requiring the customer to call the bank or PSP each time they complete a transaction. As with any such measures, banks and PSPs must walk the difficult line between safeguarding customers and avoiding undue disruption to their financial lives.

For any queries regarding APP or romance fraud, how to claim under the mandatory reimbursement scheme, how to make a complaint to the FOS, or what to do if you do not fall under the mandatory reimbursement criteria, please contact Charlotte Hill, Michael Brown, Charlie Shillito or Sophie Newman.