Most Victims of 'Romance Scam' Are Young Women in Their 30s or Younger

The Most Common Currency Exchange Scams, Including Cost Payment and Coin Investment Schemes

Victims of "romance scams," a fraudulent scheme that combines "romance" and "scam" where perpetrators approach victims on social media (SNS) pretending to seek a romantic partner and then extort money, are 70% female, according to a recent investigation. Among the victims, 87% are aged 30 or younger.

This is based on the research titled "Current Status and Countermeasures of Romance Scams" by Park Beom-jin, a master's student at the Graduate School of Information Security, Korea University, published in the academic journal Digital Forensics Research.

Park analyzed 280 reports filed with the National Police Agency's cybercrime reporting system from January to June last year, categorized as romance scam crimes. Among the victims, 71.4% (200 people) were female, and 28.6% (80 people) were male.

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By age group, those aged 20 and under accounted for the largest share at 52.1% (146 people), followed by those in their 30s at 35.4% (99 people), 40s at 10.7% (30 people), and 50 and older at 1.8% (5 people). Overall, 87.5% of victims were young people aged 30 or younger.

Park analyzed, "People aged 30 or younger, who are accustomed to online life and familiar with meeting people non-face-to-face, are likely to continue to be targets of romance scam crimes."

The total amount of damages was calculated at 3.77465 billion KRW. Citing data from the National Intelligence Service, Park noted that the damage amount, which was about 370 million KRW in 2020, increased more than fivefold to 2.07 billion KRW from January to November 2021, suggesting that the scale of damage could grow further.

By crime type, currency exchange fraud accounted for the largest share at 55.4% (155 cases), followed by payment on behalf of others at 37.1% (104 cases), and coin investment scams at 7.5% (21 cases).

Currency exchange fraud involves telling victims, "If you do not exchange points charged in cash on a site within a few days while living abroad, all points will expire," and then asking victims to deposit money into their accounts and send it onward.

The places where victims first met the scammers were mostly SNS, messengers, or dating apps. Instagram was the most common at 27.7% (75 cases), followed by dating apps Wippie at 14.0% (38 cases) and Tinder at 7.0% (19 cases).

Recently, romance scam crimes targeting Korean women have been rampant in Mexico. On the 25th (local time), the Embassy of Korea in Mexico announced that the number of women suffering financial damage from men they met on social media has been increasing. Using profiles with photos of Korean men, scammers claimed things like "I was pickpocketed in Mexico," "I was kicked out of a hotel because I had no money," and "I was unjustly imprisoned," leading some victims to send as much as 50 million KRW.