Love Month is nearly here, and while hearts are being prepped for kilig, scammers are sharpening their scripts.
Consumer advocates warn Filipinos to brace for a seasonal surge in romance scams—sweet-talking cons that increasingly double as on-ramps to full-blown financial fraud.
“Romance scams are no longer just about broken hearts,” said Jocel de Guzman, founder of advocacy group Scam Watch PH. “They’re now the opening act for organized, high-value crime.”
Today’s love scam doesn’t end with a tearful goodbye—it ends with a wiped-out crypto wallet.
De Guzman said romance-driven investment scams are exploding, run by syndicates that combine emotional manipulation with Silicon Valley-level polish. The formula is elegant and ruthless: build intimacy, harvest trust, then pitch a “can’t-miss” investment. Victims are shown dashboards flashing fake profits. When they try to cash out, they’re told to send more money to “process,” “unlock,” or “verify” their funds.
In the Philippines, the con almost always starts online. Scammers slide into DMs posing as attentive partners—foreigners, military officers, widowed professionals, or overseas workers—armed with empathy, time, and suspiciously perfect grammar. Emotional bonds are fast-tracked. Crises soon follow: medical emergencies, frozen accounts, business disasters, or travel woes that somehow require immediate financial rescue. Variations abound: military romance scams, fake foreign lovers, and fairy tales involving marriage or migration abroad.
The red flags wave early, but victims often choose not to see them. No video calls. Barely-there social media profiles. Endless excuses to avoid meeting. “I love you” said far too soon. Requests for secrecy. And, inevitably, urgent pleas for money sent through obscure payment channels.
“There are small-time scammers who are easier to catch,” De Guzman said. “But if someone refuses to video call or meet, that alone should stop everything.”
At the syndicate level, the scams are chillingly methodical. Trust is cultivated over months, followed by promises of marriage or relocation to a supposed home country. The losses can be staggering: some victims have handed over as much as P2.5 million in just six months, often funneled through cryptocurrency—fast, borderless, and unforgiving.
“The scale of these operations is massive,” De Guzman said. Many are run from abroad, but authorities have uncovered scam hubs in the Philippines employing 300 to 400 people per site, revealing an industry that looks less like petty crime and more like a call center with criminal intent.
Scam Watch PH’s data shows a clear target market: Filipinos in their late 30s and up—single individuals, widows or widowers, separated partners, overseas Filipino workers, retirees, and anyone open to long-distance love.
The preferred disguise? A Caucasian profile photo and a carefully curated life story.
Even tech safeguards are losing the arms race. Dating apps may offer verification tools and video calls, but De Guzman warned these are no longer foolproof. An NBI raid last year revealed that scammers can now manipulate video calls using artificial intelligence.
“In this environment, asking for an ID is not rude,” he said. “It’s smart.”
The victims aren’t just Filipinas chasing foreign romance. Filipino men are increasingly targeted, and in some cases, even foreigners fall for similar scams linked to Philippine-based operations.
For those already caught in Cupid’s crossfire, De Guzman urges immediate reporting to the National Anti-Scam Hotline 1326, a 24/7 service covering phishing, investment, text, and online scams, as well as to the NBI and the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group for serious cases.
Still, many victims stay silent. Shame keeps them from reporting, pushing them instead toward banks or e-wallet providers in hopes of clawing back lost funds—an avenue that rarely ends in recovery.
This Love Month, the advice is simple and decidedly unromantic: if the affection is instant, the profits are guaranteed, and the emergency is always urgent—run. In the modern dating economy, the hottest red flag is still the brightest.
