Romance scams are about as old as the pursuit of love itself, but pandemic isolation, the rise of online dating and a slew of digital tools available to fraudsters have contributed to an increase in incidents of fraud recorded, the reporter Lizzie Cernik recount Hannah Moore.

According to the UK cybercrime and fraud reporting centre, Action Fraud, 8,863 cases were reported to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau between November 2020 and October 2021, up from 6,968 the previous year. Some of the cases involved simple acts of deception; others involved teams of scammers creating fake websites and staging fake video calls to trick their targets.

Carol Goodall, 62, met his former partner Gary on a dating site after his divorce. The relationship progressed rapidly. A few months later, they were talking about getting married and had decided to pool their resources to buy a house together. Carol, who was working long hours, instructed Gary to sell his house and put the funds in a shared account. But after the property was sold for over £200,000, Carol discovered Gary was not who he claimed to be.

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