https://www.cleveland19.com/2024/02/14/scam-squad-sugar-mama-sugar-daddy-scammers-flipping-script-romance-scams/

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) -Finding someone to spend Valentine’s Day with is often the goal of people who fall victim to romance scams. They’re not finding love, however, they’re losing money.

But even those who don’t have much money at all are falling victim to romance scammers, unknowingly participating in their crimes.

In 2023, over 700 consumers reported on Better Business Bureau Scam Tracker that they were victimized by romance scams. Losses ranged from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“People who don’t have that experience don’t realize that someone courting your virtually, it feels real,” said romance scam victim Yvonne Costales Harlen.

She knew something didn’t feel right when the man she thought she was involved with moved the conversation away from the app where they met and started asking her about moving money.

Romance scammers are flipping the script and finding ways to victimize people who don’t have a lot of money to steal, with sugar mama or sugar daddy proposals. They offer to send the victim money, usually in the form of a check.

“The scammer asks you hey, you know, I’ve got this money. I need you to put it in your account. I need you then to send the leftovers to someone else,” said Ericka Dilworth with the BBB.

She says the scammer’s money isn’t real and the money victims end up sending, is their own. So they become a victim, and potentially a participant in their crimes.

“They ask you to forward it on sometimes, or ask you to buy something for them. Sometimes it’s a package that you receive and they ask you to send the package on to someplace else and you could potentially be doing something illegal,” she said.

“I did some research, come to find out if you receive money from someone overseas, that’s money laundering,” said Costales Harlen.

She stopped short of losing funds or becoming a money mule for her scammer, but many others haven’t.

“I don’t know what it is, if I’m a sucker at heart, she was saying all the right things,” said another victim, who chose to hide his identity.

Dilworth says it’s hard for traditional romance scam victims to come forward.

But it’s even more difficult to get these sugar mama or sugar daddy victims to speak up to the local police or FBI, for fear of prosecution. She says she’s confident these victims will be safe to fess up to being scammed.

“They’re not looking for the small fish. They’re looking for the big fish. And so they want you to help them figure out who’s in the back do taking care of all of this,” Dilworth said