{"id":391943,"date":"2022-02-20T16:02:08","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T00:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theaegisalliance.com\/?p=391943"},"modified":"2026-09-01T05:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T12:23:08","slug":"ftc-says-the-public-has-lost-1-3-billion-to-online-romance-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/2022\/02\/20\/ftc-dit-que-le-public-a-perdu-1-3-milliards-descroqueries-romantiques-en-ligne\/","title":{"rendered":"FTC Romance-Scam Losses Hit $1.3 Billion Across Five Years Then Social Media Made the Problem Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The FTC said this kind of scam hit a record in 2021, with people reporting $547 million lost.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014<\/strong> In February 2022 the Federal Trade Commission said consumers had reported $547 million lost to romance scams in 2021 alone, a record, and about $1.3 billion across the prior five years. The median loss was brutal because the pitch is not a stolen credit card. It is a relationship. Scammers build a person, a crisis, and a wire instruction. Older targets paid the most. The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel is a complaint database, not a recovery desk. Most of that money does not come home.<\/p>\n

The FTC press release<\/a> is still the baseline. What happened next is worse. In 2025 Americans reported $2.1 billion lost to scams that started on social media, according to an FTC Data Spotlight released April 27, 2026 \u2014 more than any other contact method, and about eight times the 2020 figure. Romance was a large slice of that. Nearly 60 percent of people who reported losing money to a romance scam in 2025 said it started on a social platform. Separate Sentinel tables put 2025 romance losses in the same $1.3 billion neighborhood as the five-year total that looked shocking in 2021.<\/p>\n

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