You meet someone special on a dating website or app. Soon they want to email, call, or message you off the platform. They say it’s true love, but they live far away — maybe for work or because they’re in the military. Then they start asking for money. Maybe it’s for a plane ticket to visit you. Or emergency surgery. Or something else urgent.

Romance scammers create fake profiles on dating sites and apps or contact you through popular social media sites like Instagram or Facebook. Scammers strike up a relationship with you to build up trust, sometimes talking or chatting several times a day. Then, they make up a story and ask for money.

People reported a record $547 million in losses to romance scams in 2021. That’s up about 80% from the reports the FTC got in 2020. In 2021, people reported paying romance scammers more with gift cards than with any other payment method. The 2021 reports also showed that cryptocurrency payments were the most costly.

Signs of a romance scam:

• Scammers say they can’t meet you in person. They might say they’re living or traveling outside the country, working on an oil rig, in the military, or working with an international organization.

• Scammers will ask you for money. Once they gain your trust, they’ll ask for your help to pay medical expenses (for them or a family member), buy their ticket to visit you, pay for their visa, or help them pay fees to get them out of trouble. They may even offer to help you get started in cryptocurrency investing.

• Scammers will tell you how to pay. All scammers, not just romance scammers, want to get your money quickly. And they want your money in a way that makes it hard for you to get it back. They’ll tell you to wire money through a company like Western Union or MoneyGram, put money on gift cards (like Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, or Steam) and give them the PIN codes, send money through a money transfer app, or transfer cryptocurrency.

Remember that anyone that asks to send your banking information, cryptocurrency, money through a payment app, or gift cards while pulling on your heart strings is a scammer.

For more information on Romance Scams or how to report fraud, just visit the FTC’s website.