MENLO PARK, Calif. – If your social media suitor seems too good to be true, it might be a scam.
Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is cautioning users to be on the alert for “romance scams” leading up to Valentine’s Day. These scams involve receiving unsolicited messages on various social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, as well as through general text messages.
In these scams, perpetrators typically pretend to be “attractive, single, and successful individuals,” often claiming to have backgrounds in the military, medicine, or business. They use photos that are either stolen from real accounts or created using artificial intelligence. Initially, scammers send messages to a large group of people in the hopes of eliciting responses. They then proceed to build trust with their targets over time before eventually requesting money, either by fabricating a financial struggle or presenting investment opportunities, often involving cryptocurrency.
Meta revealed that it collaborated with the research firm Graphika to dismantle romance scams falling into three common categories. These include scams where individuals impersonate military personnel, imitate celebrities, or pose as fake matchmaking agencies targeting individuals in Africa. The latter category involves false promises of opportunities to connect with wealthy individuals from Western countries or to form relationships with “African women.”
In addition to taking down scam networks, Meta says it is testing other tools to combat bad actors, including facial recognition technology that compares suspicious users’ profile photos against a public figure’s image. But, for now, that only works for celebrity impersonations.
To stay vigilant, Meta recommend people be suspicious of messages from strangers. If you do engage, try to verify the person’s identity by looking them up on the platform — check when their accounts were created or use a reverse image search on their photos. Requests for money, whether in the form of gift cards or payment apps, should also be treated with skepticism.
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