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A Guide to Understanding Romance Fraud

Cross, C. (2022) — A Guide to Understanding Romance Fraud

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DOI: 10.5204/book.eprints.233966 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Book
Country:   Australia
Tags:   AI-Enabled Fraud, Financial Loss, Grooming, Offender Tactics, Prevention, Psychology, Revictimisation, Risk Factors, Romance Scams, Sextortion, Social Engineering, Victim Experience, Victim Stigma
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Synopsis

            
This editorial briefing paper synthesizes prior research and official reporting data to introduce romance fraud. It defines the offense, outlines offender tactics and Whitty's seven-stage scam trajectory, summarizes financial and non-financial harms, and discusses stigma, underreporting, law-enforcement response, and prevention challenges. Its contribution is an accessible orientation to the evidence rather than a new survey, interview study, experiment, case series, or systematic review. Because the paper does not report a search strategy, inclusion criteria, source-quality appraisal, or original analysis, individual claims should be followed to the cited primary research or official dataset rather than treated as independently tested findings.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
Existing prevention advice to avoid sending money to people “you don’t know” and to meet in person is poorly aligned with romance fraud dynamics. Victim-blaming stigma discourages disclosure and reporting, undermines prevention messaging, and can increase isolation and revictimisation vulnerability.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
This is an editorial briefing paper providing a literature-based overview of romance fraud. It synthesises cited research and official loss-report data to define the fraud, describe offender tactics and Whitty’s seven-stage trajectory, summarise harms, discuss stigma and reporting barriers, and assess prevention challenges. No original data collection or empirical sample is described.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
No explicit study limitations are stated. As a short editorial overview, the paper does not report original data, sampling, analytic procedures, or outcome evaluation of prevention approaches. Its conclusions are therefore a high-level synthesis of cited literature and reported statistics rather than new empirical estimates.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Develop prevention messaging that accounts for victims’ belief that the offender is a known intimate partner rather than a stranger. Research and practice should also address stigma, improve disclosure conditions, and reduce repeat targeting of prior victims.

          

              

    
    

        
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