Meeting you was a fake: investigating the increase in romance fraud during COVID-19

Purpose Romance fraud refers to situations where an individual is deceived for financial gain by someone with whom the victim perceives be in a romantic relationship. With increase internet use, growth loneliness and increasing engagement online dating sites during COVID-19, opportunities romance may have suffered important increase. This paper aims analyse changes fraud, use pandemic. Design/methodology/approach Data about reported police UK, survey data recorded Understanding Society longitudinal survey, are used address our research questions. Auto regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modelling whether temporal observed effect of social associated lockdown stay-at-home orders. Findings The analysis shows that cyber-enabled experienced large after April 2020, which greatly above any expected crime variation considering known pre-COVID trends. was more abrupt among young adults than older persons. results also indicate only significant loneliness, while COVID. Originality/value To best authors’ knowledge, this first-of-its-kind analysing rapid on growing type fraud. It likely COVID due combined rates many people