Romance fraud losses reach £99.4m in 2024

Reported losses to romance fraud reached £99.4m in 2024, across 9,096 cases, according to Action Fraud data obtained by Which? and published on 13 February 2025¹. Action Fraud is the self-reporting tool for fraud victims in England, Northern Ireland and Wales¹.

The figures continue a pattern in which reported losses have stayed close to £88m or above since 2021, while case volumes fell in 2022 and 2023 before rising again in 2024¹.

Which? notes a gap between Action Fraud's self-reported figures and banking industry data, suggesting some victims do not tell their banks. UK Finance, the trade body, recorded romance fraud losses of £36.5m across 4,160 cases in 2023, against Action Fraud's £88.3m across 8,608 cases for the same year¹.

On who is targeted, Which? reports that males aged 20 to 29 accounted for the majority of reports to Action Fraud in 2024, followed by females aged 50 to 59¹. Scammers approach people through dating apps, fake profiles on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and X, and gaming apps¹. Which? also reports the use of artificial intelligence to generate fake images, video and audio, quoting Laura Kankaala of F-Secure on a case in which a French woman was defrauded of €830,000 after believing she was in a relationship with Brad Pitt¹.

Why it matters for households

Recovery depends on how the money was sent. Transfers from a bank account to an account controlled by a criminal are authorised push payment (APP) fraud, and a mandatory reimbursement scheme took effect on 7 October 2024, applying to all firms offering Faster Payments¹. The scheme covers transfers to UK accounts only, so payments to an international account are outside it, and claims can be refused where there is evidence of gross negligence. The maximum claim is £85,000, with multiple payments in the same scam treated as one claim, and firms may charge a £100 excess, which they can waive and must not charge vulnerable customers¹. The Payment Systems Regulator has said it expects most victims to be reimbursed, and vulnerable customers are not subject to the gross negligence test¹.

Payments made by debit card, gift card or cryptocurrency wallet are not covered by that scheme and may be harder to recover¹. Losses can also involve victims being used as money mules, with money transferred into and out of their accounts¹.

What happens next

There is no dated next step in the reported figures. Fraud can be reported to a bank or payment provider, and a complaint that is not resolved can be escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which considers rules, codes of practice and industry practice¹. Which? also points readers to support from Mind and Victim Support, whose Lisa Mills said victims are "not to blame" and are "not alone"¹.

For background on how these scams work, see romance scams and pig butchering and the wider scams and fraud section. On recovery routes, there is guidance on the Contingent Reimbursement Model Code, FSCS protection versus APP reimbursement and taking a refused scam refund to the Financial Ombudsman.