Why the order matters more than any single sign
Consumer-protection agencies describe romance scams in almost the same words: the scammer builds trust quickly, invents a reason not to meet, and then produces an emergency that only money can solve (FTC; Action Fraud). Any one of those things can happen in an honest relationship — people do fall fast, cameras do break, relatives do get ill. What gives a scam away is the sequence, and the fact that every stage moves you closer to sending money. Below are the stages as they usually arrive, and what a reasonable person can do at each one.
Stage 1 — intimacy faster than the conversation has earned
Declarations of love in the first days, talk of a future together before you have had a single real conversation, pet names from the second message. The Metropolitan Police describe this as being showered with loving messages by someone who nevertheless does not want to meet (Met Police). Honest people can be effusive too, so this stage on its own proves nothing — but note it, because a scam almost never skips it. Affection is the tool that makes the later request hard to refuse.
What to do: slow the pace. Answer warmly but ask concrete questions about her day, her work, her town. A real person answers; a script struggles.
Stage 2 — “let's talk somewhere else”
A request, early, to move to WhatsApp, Telegram, email or another app “because it is easier”. UK police note that fraudsters often prefer encrypted messaging apps (Met Police). The reason is practical: a dating site can see patterns, remove profiles and read reports; a private chat cannot. On AnnaBrides, keeping the conversation on the site also means the letters, the chat and the video calls stay in one place.
What to do: stay on the site until you have seen each other on video more than once. Someone who is genuinely interested will accept that.
Stage 3 — the video call that never happens
The camera is broken, the internet is bad, she is shy, the phone is old — for weeks. The FTC's first-listed lie is that the person cannot meet in person (FTC); the online equivalent is that they cannot appear on video. A single missed call means nothing; a pattern of reasons means everything, because a live call is the one thing a stolen photograph cannot survive. In Ukraine, real power and internet cuts happen — but they end, and a real person calls back.
What to do: ask for a short video call, inside the site, at a time that suits her. Make it easy. Then watch what happens.
Stage 4 — the story gets bigger than the person
A job abroad, a military posting, an oil rig, a hospital, a customs office: the FTC lists these settings because they justify both the distance and the coming emergency (FTC). Other people may appear — a doctor, a lawyer, a relative — to make the story feel real; Action Fraud warns that these are usually part of the fraud (Action Fraud). Details that change when you ask a plain question are a sign in themselves.
What to do: ask the same simple question twice, a few days apart. Real lives are consistent.
Stage 5 — the crisis
Something urgent that only money can fix: a medical bill, a visa or customs fee, a ticket to come and see you, a phone so you can keep talking, money to “unlock” an inheritance or a parcel. The FTC's data on reported romance scams shows the requests are almost always framed as temporary and urgent (FTC Data Spotlight). The amount is often modest at first. It is followed by another one.
What to do: treat any request for money as the answer to your question, not as a problem to solve. Do not negotiate a smaller amount.
Stage 6 — the method of payment
Gift cards, wire transfers through money-transfer companies, payment apps, cryptocurrency: the FTC names these as the ways scammers ask to be paid because they are fast and hard to reverse (FTC). A request to pay this way, for any reason, is the clearest single warning sign in this list.
Signs that are NOT reliable on their own
- Imperfect English. Most members here do not have English as a first language. Awkward grammar is the norm, not a warning sign.
- Studio-quality photographs. Professionally taken portraits are ordinary on dating sites. Ask for a video call instead of judging the photo.
- Talk of a serious relationship early. On a site built for serious relationships, that is why people are here.
- A dropped call or a day of silence. Air-raid alerts and power cuts are part of life in Ukraine. Silence that ends with an explanation is normal; silence that ends with a request for money is not.
How common is this, really?
Common enough to take seriously and rare enough not to poison every conversation. In 2023, people in the United States reported losing about 1.14 billion dollars to romance scams, with a median reported loss of about 2,000 dollars — the highest of any imposter scam that year (FTC Data Spotlight). In 2024 the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received reports from more than 7,600 people over sixty who lost over 389 million dollars to confidence and romance scams (IC3). Men over fifty are a target group precisely because they are often careful, generous and unaccustomed to being lied to at length.
Questions readers ask about romance scams
Do romance scammers video call?
Rarely, and when they do the call is short, dark, silent or "frozen", and there is no second one. A live conversation is the check a borrowed photograph fails, which is why the refusal to be seen sits so early in the sequence above (FTC; Met Police). The useful test is several calls, a week apart, with the same person reacting to what you just said.
Do romance scammers use WhatsApp?
Very often. UK police note that fraudsters prefer encrypted messaging apps (Met Police), and the reason is practical rather than technical: once a conversation has left the site, the site cannot see the pattern, read a report or remove the profile. Moving the conversation off the site is against the rules here, whoever suggests it; insistence, early, before a video call, is the stage-two sign.
Do romance scammers get caught?
Some do, and reporting is what makes it possible. Europol asks victims to keep all communication and file a police report so that the case is documented and feeds wider prevention work (Europol); the FBI's IC3 and the FTC's ReportFraud build their casework from the same reports (FBI; FTC). Most of the people behind these accounts are abroad and most money is not recovered, so the realistic aim of a report is to protect the next person — and to stop your own losses early, which is why the bank comes first.
Is a "love scam" the same thing?
Yes. Love scam, romance fraud, sweetheart scam and — when the last step is a fake investment instead of an emergency — "pig butchering" are names for the same sequence with different endings (Action Fraud). The stages above apply to all of them.
If you recognise the sequence
Stop, keep the messages, and report the profile to the site — on AnnaBrides, to support with the profile address. If money has already gone, contact your bank or the payment company at once and report to your national fraud service: ReportFraud.ftc.gov in the US, Action Fraud in the UK (FTC; Action Fraud). Nobody who follows the sequence above has done anything foolish; the scripts are written by people who do this for a living.
Before the next conversation — and certainly before you book a ticket — go through the full safety checklist for international dating; it turns the stages above into twenty questions you can answer yes or no.
This guide is part of the AnnaBrides dating safety hub. On this site money never changes hands between members — there is no feature for it — so any request for money is, by definition, a request to leave the site.