An older woman believed she was dating Elon Musk after an online impersonator sent affectionate messages and audio that sounded like the billionaire, her daughter told WSOC-TV in February 2025. According to her daughter, the woman made large wire transfers, including at least one exceeding $100,000. Those were followed by daily $3,000 ATM withdrawals, with much of the cash used to buy gift cards. In less than a year, more than $600,000 in savings was gone.
Read: First thing a scammer asks for? Silence, not money
Her case helps illustrate how romance scams produced staggering losses in 2025. The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network received 70,588 romance scam reports describing $1.49 billion in losses in 2025, according to FTC agency data. AARP research also found that 9% of adults 50 and older had experienced an online romantic connection in which the person eventually asked for money or encouraged a cryptocurrency investment. But the financial losses tell only part of the story. Some victims continue trusting and paying scammers after relatives, banks or law enforcement show them evidence of the fraud. When a romance scam becomes emotionally entrenched, proof alone may not break the attachment. Loved ones may need to preserve whatever trust remains, establish firm financial boundaries and focus on preventing the next payment.
How the Relationship Creates Financial Leverage
Romance scams are confidence schemes. The criminal first creates a relationship that appears to provide affection, companionship and a shared future. Money enters the conversation later.
“Romance scammers are professionals,” said John Wilson, senior fellow for threat research at cybersecurity company Fortra. “They are experts at identifying emotionally vulnerable individuals and then leveraging those vulnerabilities to maintain control over their victims.”
Scammers use dating sites, social media and messaging apps to impersonate celebrities, military personnel or overseas professionals, or to create personas tailored to a target’s interests. The details vary, but government agencies have identified recurring red flags. Scammers may call or message frequently to make the target feel special while avoiding an independently verifiable in-person meeting. The scammer may spend months, and sometimes years, building what feels like a genuine relationship. They may move conversations away from the original platform, request payment by cryptocurrency or gift card, or seek access to a bank account, according to the FBI and Scamwatch.
The FTC warns that scammers may claim they need help with medical expenses or a plane ticket so the couple can finally meet. They may also encourage secrecy or isolate the victim from relatives who question the relationship. When impersonating a wealthy or famous person, a scammer may promise the victim money, or an expensive gift instead of asking for financial help. The victim is then told to pay a fee before receiving it, a scheme the Justice Department classifies as advance-fee fraud.
Why Showing Proof May Not Be Enough
“Showing someone proof may address what they know cognitively, but it does not automatically disrupt the emotional and behavioral attachment that has developed around the relationship,” said Nicole Thompson, a licensed psychotherapist and founder and clinical director of Bethesda Behavioral Health Services.
Thompson said the attachment may be reinforced by companionship, validation, hope or emotional security.
The relationship may allow someone to feel “lovable, desirable, needed, or hopeful about the future,” said Santiago Delboy, a psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker who founded Fermata Psychotherapy. Accepting the fraud may therefore mean losing an imagined partner, an anticipated life together and a version of themselves that felt more alive. Delboy said sending money can make victims feel useful, needed or depended on and reinforce a self-image as self-sacrificing.
“Refusing or setting boundaries can feel like becoming selfish, abandoning someone in danger, or forfeiting love,” he said.
Denial may then shield victims from grief, humiliation and doubts about their own judgment, Delboy said.
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How to Talk Without Pushing the Victim Away
No conversation is guaranteed to break a scammer’s hold. A victim may reject the evidence, stop confiding in relatives or continue sending money. Families may need to shift from trying to convince the victim to preserving enough trust that the victim still has somewhere to turn. Thompson said families should avoid shame and repeated arguments. Instead, they can maintain the connection, ask questions that help the person recognize inconsistencies independently and establish firm financial boundaries. Delboy said a private conversation with one trusted person may feel less threatening than a family confrontation.
Delboy warned that “turning every conversation into an argument can make defending the relationship their central task.”
Choosing not to challenge every claim does not mean confirming the relationship is real. Families can maintain ordinary contact while refusing to provide money or facilitate transactions. Wilson recommended involving a neutral third party, such as a therapist, religious leader, trusted adviser or support group.
How to Limit Further Financial Damage
Even if the victim remains convinced, loved ones can draw firm boundaries around their own money and try to slow further losses.
They can refuse to provide cash, buy gift cards, transfer cryptocurrency, co-sign loans or allow their accounts to receive money. If the victim needs help with food, housing or medical costs, loved ones can pay the provider directly instead of handing over money that could be redirected. With the victim’s cooperation, loved ones can contact the bank’s fraud department, lower transfer limits, establish transaction alerts, change compromised passwords and consider a credit freeze. Messages, receipts, account information, phone numbers and transaction records should be preserved.
The scam can be reported to the social media or dating platform, the FTC and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. The FBI recommends ending all contact with the scammer. When suspected dementia or another cognitive impairment raises questions about the victim’s ability to manage money, families may need help from Adult Protective Services or an Area Agency on Aging. An elder-law attorney can explain what authority, if any, relatives have over the person’s finances.
Families may never receive a clear confession that the relationship was a scam. Success may instead mean stopping the next payment, refusing to finance the deception and preserving enough trust that the victim has somewhere safe to turn when the relationship begins to collapse.
