Romance Scam

A recent variant is the "Romance Scam" which is a money-for-romance angle. The victim is usually approached by the scammer on an online dating service, on an Instant messenger (like Yahoo IM) or even social networking sites. The scammer claims to have become interested in the victim, and have pictures posted of an attractive person who is not actually the poster.

The scammer uses this communication to gain the victim's confidence, and then ask for money. The offending party may claim to be interested in meeting the victim, but needs some cash up front in order to book the plane, hotel room, and other expenses.

In other cases, they may claim they're trapped in a foreign country and need assistance to return, to escape imprisonment by corrupt local officials, to pay for medical expenses due to an illness contracted abroad, and so on. The scammer may also use the confidence gained by the romance angle to introduce some variant of the original Nigerian Letter scheme, such as saying they need to get money or valuables out of the country and offer to share the wealth, making the request for help in leaving the country even more attractive to the victim.

A newer version of the scam is to claim to have 'information' about the fidelity of a person's significant other which they will share for a fee. This information is garnered through social networking sites by using search parameters such as 'In a relationship' or 'Married'. Anonymous emails are first sent to attempt to verify receipt, then a new web based email account is sent along with directions on how to retrieve the information.