Romance scam help and support — your UK guide

If you think you've been caught up in a romance scam, or someone you love has, you're not stupid and you're nowhere near alone. UK police logged more than ten thousand romance fraud reports in 2025, and the actual number is several times that because most people never report. Losses ran past £100 million. Most of the people behind those numbers — and this is the bit nobody seems to say loudly enough — are clever, careful adults who got targeted by professionals who do this every day, all day, as a job.

This page will tell you what to do next. What the law says about getting your money back (it changed in October 2024 and a lot of people still don't know). Where to get proper emotional support. And how to help someone you love who can't yet see it.

It's a long page on purpose. Skip to whatever section you need:

• I've been scammed — what do I do right now?
• I think it's happening but I'm not sure
• Someone I love is being scammed and won't listen
• Getting your money back — the 2024 law explained
• Mental health support — for after
• Reducing the chance it happens again
• FAQs

I've been scammed — what do I do right now?

Take these three steps in this order. Everything else can wait an hour.

The first hour

1. Stop all contact with the scammer. Don't tell them why you're stopping. Don't argue with them, don't try to get a final answer out of them, don't send a parting message. Block, mute, walk away from the device for ten minutes if you have to. Every minute you keep talking to them gives them another chance to manipulate you, and any later messages might complicate your bank's investigation. If you've been using WhatsApp or similar, block before you delete the chat. Once you delete a thread you may lose the messages you need as evidence.

2. Phone your bank. Do it now. Not after you've thought about it for half an hour, not first thing tomorrow. The number's on the back of your card, or in your banking app. Tell them, in these words: "I think I've been the victim of an authorised push payment scam, a romance scam." Use the phrase "APP scam." It triggers the right process at their end. Don't downplay it, don't apologise for wasting their time, don't say "it's probably nothing." Banks have been legally required since October 2024 to take this seriously, and most of them now have specialist teams for exactly this. Get a reference number for the call before you hang up. Write it down somewhere.

3. Save the evidence, before you delete anything. Screenshot every conversation you can still get to. Save photos they sent you, especially of their face. Note dates and amounts of every payment. Keep any email addresses, phone numbers, profile names, dating-site usernames, and bank account details they ever gave you. Stick all of it in one folder on your phone or laptop where you can find it again. Don't post any of it publicly tonight — not on Facebook or a forum or anywhere else, because broadcasting it now can compromise an investigation, and frankly because it's something you may regret in a fortnight when you're calmer.

The first day

Once those three things are done, then report the crime properly. Where you report depends on where you live in the UK:

• England, Wales, or Northern Ireland: report to Report Fraud, the service that used to be called Action Fraud. The brand changed but most people still know it by the old name. Number is 0300 123 2040 and the website is reportfraud.police.uk. You'll get a crime reference number; keep it somewhere you'll find again. Be honest about everything, including amounts. They aren't there to judge.
• Scotland: Action Fraud doesn't cover Scotland. Phone Police Scotland directly on 101.
• In immediate danger, or if the scammer turns up at your door, or starts threatening you in person: call 999.

A note on what reporting actually does, because there's a fair amount of confusion about this. Honest version: the police rarely investigate individual romance scams as standalone cases. The criminals are usually overseas, often in well-organised networks running hundreds of victims at once. What reporting does do is feed the intelligence picture, contribute to international takedowns, and (this is important) your reimbursement claim with your bank does not depend on an arrest. Reporting and reimbursement are separate things. So report anyway, even if it feels pointless.

If you can't bring yourself to make a personal report, and a lot of people can't, the shame is real and overwhelming, then Crimestoppers takes anonymous reports on 0800 555 111. It's not a perfect substitute for a named report, but it's better than silence.

After that, and this is the bit people resist most, please tell one other person. Not your whole family yet. Not a group chat. Not your adult children unless you're really close to them. One trusted person. Could be your closest friend, a sibling, a neighbour you've known for years, anyone whose loyalty isn't in question. The reason this matters is more important than it sounds at first: the scammer's whole strategy is to isolate you from the people who would have spotted it. Telling one person breaks the isolation. If there isn't anyone in your life who fits, and that's more common than people admit, Victim Support's helpline is free, confidential, open round the clock, and trained for exactly this. The number is 0808 16 89 111.

The first week

Here's the bit most people don't know: you may be able to get most of your money back.

If the money was sent by Faster Payments or CHAPS bank transfer (which covers most online UK transfers between banks), and it went out on or after 7 October 2024, your bank is now legally required to reimburse you. Up to £85,000 per claim. Within five working days of you reporting the scam, in most cases. There's a small excess (at most £100) and it's waived if you count as a "vulnerable customer", which most romance fraud victims do. There's a fuller explanation further down this page of who is and isn't covered, and what to do if your bank tries to refuse. The headline though: this is not the same world it was three years ago. Most claims now succeed.

If the money went via gift vouchers, or in cryptocurrency, or to an overseas account outside the UK system, recovery is much, much harder. Reporting still matters, but you should brace yourself. There's more on what to do in those cases in the FAQ section.

A short note before you go any further. You may feel an enormous urge to keep this secret. To handle it alone. To deal with it before anyone finds out. That feeling is not yours. It's been put there by the scammer over weeks or months, deliberately, because secrecy is how they keep you. Telling one trusted person is the single most important thing you can do for yourself today. Not tomorrow. Today.

I think it's happening but I'm not sure

This is a different kind of fear. You haven't lost the money yet, or maybe a small amount and you're trying to convince yourself that's all it'll be. Something doesn't sit right but you don't want to be the person who throws away a relationship over a feeling. Read these twelve checks honestly. If three or more apply, you're almost certainly being targeted. Six and you definitely are.

1. We've never video-called, or every video call has been "broken" (bad signal, camera not working, only their voice)
2. We met online but moved off the dating site quickly, to WhatsApp, Telegram, email, or text
3. They told me they loved me within the first few weeks
4. They have a job that conveniently keeps them abroad and out of reach: military, oil rig, surgeon working overseas, UN aid worker, working on a contract in Dubai
5. There's been a sudden emergency right when we were finally going to meet
6. They've asked for money — even a small amount, even just to "borrow until next week"
7. They've asked me to send a gift card, voucher, or cryptocurrency rather than a normal bank transfer
8. They've talked to me about an investment opportunity, especially one involving crypto or trading platforms
9. Their photos look a bit too perfect, or too generic, and a reverse image search has turned up the same pictures used elsewhere
10. The story shifts when I ask follow-up questions, or details from earlier conversations don't match later ones
11. They get angry, sulky, or guilt-trip me when I suggest a video call or want to verify something
12. There's a small knot in my stomach as I read this list

How to read your score:

• Nought to two apply. Probably fine, but stay alert and don't drop your guard. Our prevention guide goes into much more detail on the patterns to watch for.
• Three to five apply. This is very likely a scam. Don't send any more money. Don't tell them you're suspicious, that just gives them a chance to course-correct and reel you back in. Quietly skip up to "I've been scammed — what do I do right now?" and start at step one.
• Six or more. It's a scam. Full stop. The point of the next twenty-four hours is to protect what's left of your money and your peace of mind. Same advice: go up to the action steps.

Quick verification — things you can do today

You don't have to confront anything yet. There are quiet checks you can run that they won't know about.

Reverse image search. Save their main profile photo to your phone. Then go to images.google.com and click the camera icon, or upload it to tineye.com. This searches for that exact image across the whole internet. If it appears on three different "people" with three different names, you've got your answer in about thirty seconds — and this single check ends more scams than anything else on this list. If you've never done a reverse image search before, ask a younger relative or a friend to walk you through it. There's no shame in not knowing; it took everyone a first time.

Demand a proper video call. Real people will agree to one within a day or two. Scammers won't. They'll have constant excuses: bad signal where they are, the camera's broken, there's a project deadline, the time difference is awkward. The excuses pile up. Pay attention to the pattern, not to any single excuse, because each individual excuse will sound plausible in isolation. The pattern is the tell.

Ask specific local questions. A real Brighton resident knows the i360 and the Pavilion and the Lanes; a real Glaswegian knows Kelvingrove and the difference between the West End and Shawlands. If they say they live in Manchester, ask which side of the city they're on, what their nearest tram stop is. Real answers come quickly and casually. Made-up answers are vague, generic, or weirdly off. They'll name a place that exists but they won't get the small details right. They'll change the subject quickly, too.

Search their name plus "scammer" or "romance fraud" on Google. You'll be surprised how often this turns something up: somebody else who got the same script, the same photos, the same name. Forums like Romance Scam Survivors and Scamalytics catalogue known offenders.

Trust the gut feeling about secrecy. This is the single most reliable predictor on this whole page. If you find that you haven't been telling people who know you about this relationship (your sister, your best friend from work, your closest neighbour) and you can't quite explain why you haven't told them, that is not your decision. The scammer has put that reluctance into you, on purpose. A real partner does not require you to keep them hidden from the people who love you.

If you've already sent money, even a small amount, you're now in the territory of the previous section. Skip back up. The faster you act, the better your chances of getting it back.

Someone I love is being scammed and won't listen

If you can see a pattern your relative can't, you're already helping just by reading this. The hard part is what to do about it, because the obvious moves (telling them straight, sitting them down with the family, laying out the evidence) are exactly the ones that tend to push them deeper in. Here's what tends to actually work, and what makes things worse.

Why they're not listening

You have to start by understanding the position your relative is actually in, because if you don't, every conversation you try to have will go wrong before you've finished the first sentence.

The scammer has spent weeks, months, sometimes well over a year, building what feels to your mum, your dad, your friend, your aunt, like the most loving and attentive relationship of their life. Their brain is producing the same chemicals it would in a real relationship: oxytocin, dopamine, the proper falling-in-love mix. So when you turn up and tell them their partner isn't real, in their nervous system you are not the rescuer. You are the threat to the most precious thing they currently have. Of course they push back. The scammer will also have pre-empted you, often months before you even noticed something was off, with something like: "Your family won't understand us yet. Your daughter will try to break us up. Don't tell her about us until we've actually met." So when you do exactly what the scammer predicted, that's confirmation, in your relative's mind, that the scammer was right and you can't be trusted with this.

This is why the more you push, the more they retreat. Most adult children who try the head-on confrontation end up watching the parent close down further and start sending more money in secret, because the scammer told them you would react this way and now you have, exactly to script.

You're not being stupid by trying to confront them. It's the obvious thing to do. It just doesn't work. Almost ever.

What does work

Stay close and stay normal. The scammer's whole strategy is isolation: getting your relative to spend their evenings on the phone with the scammer instead of with their actual family, getting them to skip the lunch with their sister, getting them to mistrust the friend who keeps asking awkward questions. The single biggest thing you can do to fight that is to be calmly, persistently, undramatically present in their life. Phone calls. Pop-in visits. A weekly meal. A walk. None of it about the scam. You are reminding them that there is another world where they are loved, where the love came before any of this, and where it will still be there afterwards. And yes, this sounds soft and slow, and it is, and it works.

Ask, don't tell. Telling them they're being scammed has, as we just said, more or less a nil success rate. Asking about the relationship, with genuine curiosity rather than loaded questions, gets a great deal further. Tell me about him. How did you two meet? What does he do exactly? Where does he live? Have you done a proper video call yet? Why hasn't he flown over? Then listen. Actually listen. Let some of the answers sit there in the silence. Real curiosity is disarming, and it gives your relative the space to hear themselves describing a relationship that, said out loud, doesn't quite hold together. A surprising number of people start to wobble at this stage, on their own, just from being asked.

Show, don't argue. If you have access to a photo of the supposed partner, do a reverse image search together, but frame it as something casual rather than a trap. "Did you see that thing on the news the other day, about people using fake photos online? Apparently you can check any photo against the whole internet, takes ten seconds. Have you seen how it works? Show me his picture, let's check, just for fun." If the photo turns out to be a model from a stock photography site, or appears under three different names, the conversation will turn itself. You don't have to deliver the punchline. The image search delivers it for you.

Bring in someone they will actually listen to. Your relative might not listen to their adult child. There's too much old family pattern in that relationship, and on this topic in particular they may feel patronised by you. They might listen to their own sibling. To an old friend. To their GP. To someone from their church or club. To someone their own age who has themselves been a victim of the same thing and will say so plainly. Find that person. The peer-victim is sometimes spectacularly effective because they can say "I sent £40,000 to a man who turned out not to exist, and I thought I was too smart for it as well" and that lands in a way nothing from a son or daughter ever can.

Quietly contact their bank. This one is properly useful and most family members don't realise they can do it. You can phone any major UK bank's main line, identify yourself as a concerned family member, and report a "potential vulnerability" or "potential scam targeting [your relative's name]". You don't need a Power of Attorney. You're not asking the bank to do anything to the account in your name; you're providing information to them, which they're required to take seriously under the FCA's vulnerable-customers guidance. The bank's specialist team can then put a soft flag on your relative's account that triggers extra questions whenever an unusual transfer's requested. Your relative won't know it was you who phoned. Most major UK banks now have dedicated romance fraud teams and they take these calls seriously. Worth doing even if you're not certain.

Phone Victim Support yourself. Even if your relative isn't ready to call anyone, you can. Their helpline is 0808 16 89 111 and they'll give you specific situational advice. They've heard your story before, and they'll know, for your particular circumstances, what's worked for other families. You don't need permission to make this call.

What makes it worse

Some of this is obvious in retrospect. Some of it absolutely isn't, so it's worth being explicit:

• Telling them they're stupid. They're not. They've been targeted by professionals. The moment you imply otherwise, you become the enemy in this story and the scammer becomes the only safe person in their life. Even an undertone of "I can't believe you fell for this" will close the conversation for weeks.
• Forcing a confrontation. The family-meets-with-evidence-laid-out approach almost always backfires, often dramatically. It tends to push the next, biggest payment to the scammer faster than would otherwise have happened, because the scammer warned them this exact ambush was coming and the ambush "proves" the scammer was right.
• Cutting off contact in frustration. Understandable, completely human, and the worst possible move. Isolation is what the scammer wants. The day you stop returning their calls is the day the scammer wins.
• Telling everyone in the family. Shame multiplies with the size of the audience. One trusted person at a time. Your relative may eventually decide to tell others; that's their decision, not yours.
• Going around them to the police, in their name, without their knowledge. Reports have to come from the victim themselves to be useful, and finding out you reported on their behalf will permanently damage the trust that keeps you in their life, which is itself the most valuable thing you have for getting them out of this.

When it tips into a serious safeguarding situation

If your relative has lost more than ten or fifteen thousand pounds and is still actively sending more, or if there's something wrong that goes beyond a romance scam (financial coercion, signs of cognitive decline, being controlled in a way that goes past ordinary persuasion) you have other routes. Hourglass (formerly Action on Elder Abuse) takes calls about suspected elder financial abuse on 0808 808 8141. Your local council's adult social services team can do a safeguarding assessment if you're worried about capacity or abuse. If there's any real sign that your relative's mental capacity is affected, not just stubbornness or being lovestruck but actually impaired, speak to their GP. None of these routes will take action without good reason; you're raising a concern, not pressing a button.

Getting your money back — what UK law says since October 2024

Before October 2024, getting money back after a romance scam was largely a question of how generous your bank was feeling. Some banks were good. Most were poor. The burden of proving anything fell on you. From the seventh of October 2024 that changed quite a lot, and a lot of UK consumers still don't realise it. The Payment Systems Regulator brought in a mandatory reimbursement scheme, and it covers most romance scams.

Are you eligible?

Probably yes, if all of these are true:

• The payment was made on or after 7 October 2024
• You sent it via Faster Payments or CHAPS (these are the rails most online UK bank-to-bank transfers use, so most ordinary transfers are covered)
• The money went to a UK bank account
• You were tricked: you believed the recipient was a person who they weren't, or believed the payment was for a thing that it wasn't
• You weren't grossly negligent (more on that below, because banks try to lean on this one)

You're probably not covered by this specific scheme if:

• You paid by gift voucher, prepaid card, or cryptocurrency
• The money went to an overseas account, outside the UK banking system
• The payment happened before 7 October 2024 (older claims fall under a previous voluntary code that most banks signed up to; still worth pursuing, just under different rules)

If you're unsure, claim anyway. The bank has to make the determination, not you, and they have to do it within fixed timeframes.

The numbers, plainly

• £85,000. That's the maximum reimbursement per claim. It covers about ninety-nine percent of all romance fraud cases by value.
• Five business days. That's how long the bank has to refund you after you report the scam. They can pause the clock for up to thirty-five business days if they're investigating, but only if. Most cases don't need that long.
• £100. That's the most they can charge you as an excess. And, important: they cannot charge it at all if you count as a "vulnerable consumer", which under FCA guidance most romance fraud victims do, because of the emotional manipulation involved. If your bank charges you £100, push back. Ask them in writing why they don't consider you vulnerable.
• 50:50. Your sending bank and the receiving bank split the cost between them. This is not your concern, but it does explain why your bank is suddenly motivated to take fraud seriously: they're now exposed financially. Use that.

What "gross negligence" actually means

This is the biggest thing banks try to use to wriggle out of paying. They'll tell you you ignored their warnings, that you authorised the transfer despite being told it might be a scam, that the warning screen flashed up and you clicked through it anyway. There is a high bar in the law for "gross negligence", much higher than just "you made a mistake". The Financial Ombudsman has consistently ruled in favour of customers in cases the banks tried to call gross negligence. Things that have been ruled not gross negligence include: continuing to send money after a friend warned you, sending money to a "military partner" overseas, falling for an elaborate sob story, ignoring a single bank warning screen because you were emotionally invested. To meet the bar of gross negligence the bank essentially has to prove you were reckless with your own money in a way no reasonable person would be, not just that you were unwise. If your bank rejects your claim citing gross negligence, do not accept it on the spot. Ask them, in writing, for the reasons in detail. Then escalate.

When your bank refuses

The Financial Ombudsman Service (financial-ombudsman.org.uk, 0800 023 4567) is free, independent, and binding on the bank if they decide in your favour. Romance fraud cases that reach the Ombudsman are decided in the customer's favour the majority of the time. The Ombudsman has publicly criticised UK banks for refusing romance fraud claims they should have accepted, which is a big part of why the banks are getting better at accepting them. You don't need a lawyer for this. You fill in a form online or you phone them. They'll request your file from the bank. They make a decision. The bank has to comply.

Don't be put off by how official it sounds. People do this all the time. The Ombudsman exists for situations exactly like this, the service costs you nothing, and you don't have to be confident or articulate to use it.

What if the money is just gone — crypto, vouchers, overseas?

You'll have read by now that recovery is unlikely if you sent money outside the UK banking system. That is true and there's no use sugar-coating it. But it isn't quite zero, and a few things are still worth doing:

• Report it anyway, both to Report Fraud and to your bank. Banks sometimes recover funds even from international transfers, and Report Fraud feeds the international intelligence picture
• Tell the platform you used. If it was a UK-regulated crypto exchange, they may freeze related accounts. If you used PayPal, Wise, or similar, contact them
• Be extremely careful of anyone who contacts you offering to "recover" your crypto for an upfront fee. That is itself one of the most common follow-up scams, often run by people who bought your details from the original scammer's network

Mental health support — for after

Recovering from a romance scam is a particular kind of grief that doesn't really have a name yet. You've lost two things at the same time: the money, which is the easier of the two to talk about; and the relationship, which turned out never to have existed in the first place. Mourning someone who wasn't real is a strange, heavy, lonely sort of loss, and it lasts longer than people warn you it will. You haven't lost your judgement. You were targeted by people who do this for a living, who run hundreds of these scripts at the same time, who refine the language every week. The shame isn't yours, even when it feels like it is. Especially when it feels like it is.

Some of what you might feel:

Shame. Almost universal. Almost never deserved. The shame is the scammer's last weapon, the one they leave inside you when they've taken everything else.

Grief. For the relationship you thought you were in. For the version of them you thought existed. For the future you'd already started imagining: the trip you'd half-planned, the conversations you thought were ahead, the everyday routines you were going to have. None of that future was real. The loss of it is.

Anger. At them. At yourself. At the people in your life who said "how could you not see it". Maybe at the bank. Maybe at the world for letting this be a thing that happens to people. Anger is normal and it's useful in moderation; it's only worrying if it stays at full volume for months.

Anxiety. About money. About telling family. About the practical fallout. Sometimes a more general anxiety about being online at all, about ever trusting anyone you meet again.

Depression. Sometimes mild, sometimes serious enough that you need real help. The tell-tale signs are sleep going off, appetite going off, not seeing people, an inability to picture any kind of future. If that's where you are, please get proper help. Your GP is the right starting point and they will not judge you.

Where to get help

The list below isn't exhaustive but these are the main UK organisations that take these calls every day:

• Samaritans. 116 123. Free, twenty-four hours a day, every day, anonymous if you want it that way. You don't need to be in crisis to call them. Being upset is reason enough. You can also email [email protected] if you can't bring yourself to speak.
• Mind. 0300 123 3393, weekdays 9am to 6pm. Mental health charity. They can connect you to local services and talk through what you're experiencing.
• Victim Support. 0808 16 89 111. Free, twenty-four hours, confidential, specifically trained in fraud trauma. They have a dedicated relationship-fraud service in London, Kent, and Sussex with specialist caseworkers; for the rest of the UK they cover general support, including peer groups for fraud victims that many people find a turning point once they're ready for them.
• Age UK. 0800 678 1602, every day from 8am to 7pm. If you're over sixty, this is often the gentlest first call to make. They specialise in the long-term effects of fraud on older people and they don't judge.
• Think Jessica. A small UK charity dedicated specifically to victims of mass-marketing and emotional fraud. They understand this in a way that most general charities don't.
• Hourglass. 0808 808 8141. For situations that may amount to elder financial abuse, particularly when family members are involved or when the scammer may be exploiting a vulnerable adult specifically.
• Your GP. A romance scam can trigger or worsen depression and anxiety, and sometimes a proper course of treatment is what's needed. NHS Talking Therapies (formerly IAPT) is available without a referral in most parts of England; you can self-refer through the NHS website. Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland all have equivalents.

What helps in the longer run

A few things people who've been through this say helped them:

• Telling at least one person who loves you, even though every instinct in you will resist
• Joining a peer support group eventually. Victim Support runs them, and they can be more useful than friends and family precisely because the other people in the room have had the same conversation with their own bank, the same morning of staring at the wall
• Avoiding online dating for a while if it feels triggering, then picking a moderated UK-only platform when you do come back to it rather than a big global app
• Writing the timeline of the scam down from start to finish. A lot of victims describe this as a turning point. Seeing it written out in your own handwriting, the dates and the amounts and the messages, somehow externalises it and makes it less of a thing inside you
• Time. The thing nobody wants to hear, but most victims describe themselves as feeling materially different at six months, and again at a year. Six months feels like forever when you're at six weeks. It does pass

Reducing the chance it happens again

Roughly fifteen percent of UK romance fraud victims get targeted again. Sometimes by the same crime network using a different persona, sometimes by a completely different group who bought the victim's contact details from the first lot. There is a real, documented "sucker list" trade on the dark web, and recently-defrauded people are at the top of those lists. Knowing this does most of the work; once you know the next contact attempt is statistically likely, your guard is up by default.

A few practical changes that actually work:

Tighten up your social media. Set Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to private. Take your date of birth, your town, and any reference to being widowed, divorced, or recently bereaved off the public-facing parts of your profiles. Scammers explicitly search for these signals because they indicate emotional vulnerability and, often, available capital.

Be much more sceptical of unsolicited messages on social media generally. Romance scams these days often start on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or LinkedIn rather than on dating sites. Partly because dating sites have got better at moderation, partly because social platforms have got worse, and partly because people drop their guard on a platform they don't think of as "dating". A friend-of-a-friend request from someone overseas with whom you have no real-world connection is almost always a scam attempt now. Ignore them.

If you do go back to online dating, choose a moderated UK-only site. Stay on the platform's own messaging. Don't move to WhatsApp or Telegram until you've had a video call and ideally an in-person meeting. The moment they push you off the platform, you've lost most of the safety the platform offers.

Tell your bank, formally, that you've been a fraud victim previously. Most major UK banks will then flag your account for additional checks on unusual transfers, without restricting your ordinary use of it. This works, it's free, and they won't tell anyone else.

Consider changing your email address and your phone number if the scammer had them. If they keep contacting you after you've blocked them, that's harassment, and harassment is a separate offence. Report it.

Have a read of our prevention guide for the full set of red flags. It goes into the patterns, the scripts, and the verification techniques in more depth than there's room for here.

FAQs

I sent money before October 2024 — am I out of luck?

Not necessarily. You may still have a claim under the older voluntary Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) Code, which most major UK banks signed up to before the new mandatory rules came in. It's discretionary rather than mandatory, but it's still a real avenue. Start with your bank, escalate to the Financial Ombudsman if they refuse. The Ombudsman will consider claims under the older code as well, and quite a few of those claims succeed.

I sent it in cryptocurrency. Is any of it recoverable?

Honestly, very rarely. The new APP fraud rules don't cover crypto, and crypto transactions are typically irreversible by design. Report it anyway. Action Fraud (now Report Fraud) uses the data, and exchanges occasionally do freeze accounts when patterns get spotted. Be extremely careful of anyone who contacts you offering to recover your crypto for a fee. That is itself one of the most common follow-up scams, frequently run by the same network that ran the original scam, because they already know you've lost money in crypto and they know you're desperate. Genuine recovery firms exist but they don't cold-call victims and they don't charge upfront fees in crypto. Anyone who does either of those things is, almost without exception, a second scammer.

I'm too embarrassed to tell my family. What can I do quietly?

A surprising amount, actually. Phone Victim Support (0808 16 89 111) for confidential support with no requirement to involve anyone else. Phone Crimestoppers (0800 555 111) to report the crime anonymously. Make your bank reimbursement claim. Your bank will not contact your family about it; that's not their business and it isn't allowed. You can rebuild without anyone outside your household knowing, if that's what you need to do. Many people do tell someone eventually, but on their own timeline rather than someone else's.

The scammer is threatening to share private photos or videos of me. What do I do?

This is sextortion. It's a separate criminal offence and is taken seriously. Three things, in this order. Don't pay (paying never makes it stop, it just confirms you'll pay again, and they'll come back for more next month). Don't reply. Report immediately to Report Fraud on 0300 123 2040 and tell them specifically that this is sextortion; they have a dedicated process for it. The Revenge Porn Helpline (0345 6000 459) is the UK's specialist service for getting intimate content taken down from online platforms, and they're brilliant. They have direct contacts at the major platforms and can move very quickly when they need to. The Internet Watch Foundation can help if anything has been shared involving anyone under eighteen. If you're feeling unsafe, tell someone tonight. Samaritans is 116 123 if you can't talk to family.

Will the police actually catch the scammer?

Almost certainly not the individual scammer, no, and it's worth being straight with you about that rather than pretending. Most romance fraud is run from outside the UK by organised crime networks, and individual prosecutions are rare. What does happen, though, is that reports build up the intelligence picture, contribute to international takedowns of the larger networks, and protect future victims by feeding into bank fraud-detection systems. Your reimbursement claim with your bank does not depend on an arrest happening; they're separate processes entirely. So report anyway.

My elderly parent is sending money and refuses to believe it's a scam. Can I legally stop them?

Not unilaterally, no. UK law respects adult autonomy and you can't override another adult's decisions about their own money unless you have legal authority through a Power of Attorney, or there's been a formal capacity assessment that says they can no longer make decisions for themselves. What you can do: contact their bank to flag the account for vulnerability (you don't need their permission for this, you're providing information rather than requesting a transaction); contact their GP if you genuinely think capacity might be affected; contact your local council's adult safeguarding team if it's serious; phone Hourglass on 0808 808 8141 for advice specifically on suspected elder financial abuse. There's a more in-depth section on this earlier in the guide, see helping a relative who won't listen.

Romance fraud is an unusually personal kind of crime. It uses the things (trust, hope, loneliness, the wish to be properly known by another person) that make life worth living in the first place. Recovering takes time. But recovery is normal. It does happen. You're not the first person this has happened to and you won't be the last, and most of the people it's happened to are getting on with their lives now even if it didn't feel possible six months in. The shame is the scammer's last weapon. Don't let them keep that one.

If you're thinking about coming back to online dating eventually, on a moderated UK-only site with members aged fifty and over, you'd be welcome at Gracefully Single when you're ready. No rush.