Scammers are getting sneakier, with many hoping that you’ve still got love for your old situationship.
There’s a running internet meme that says it’ll take you much longer to get over your three-month situationship than it does to get over your longest relationship.
A situation is a form of romantic relationship that generally isn’t that serious.
This seems to be exactly what scammers are hoping for, with a new type of romance scam on the rise: the “situationship scam.”
At least that’s what one X user is claiming in a viral tweet that received 1.2 million views and over 300 comments.
“Scammers pretending to be old situationships now,” said X user “bored2die.”
While this isn’t an official term, situationship scams might be a nod to the age-old romance scam.
The post shows an incoming text message from an unknown number. The text reads, “Can I say something?” without any other context.
The number has the country code +1, which could originate from North America, Canada, and various Caribbean countries.
However, the X user claims that this is certainly a scam, and other users seemed to agree and shared their own experiences with situationship scammers.
One user responded, “No, because, for real,” while sharing screenshots of what look like Instagram DMs from accounts with a couple of followers.
The message reads, “just wanted to say hi,” presumably luring the user into responding.
Other users shared their screenshots with similar messages that follow the same pattern.
Scammers seem to be luring their victims in by asking a simple question like “Are you free to talk for a few?” or even just making a statement saying “Please text me.”
Interestingly, many of these texts seem to come from the same place, as they use that +1 country code.
What’s a “situationship scam?”
Much like a typical romance scam, scammers attempt to extort their victims by building a long relationship in order to steal money.
Romance scams tend to start on dating apps, and soon they’ll want to take it over to other forms of communication, such as texting or other apps, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Recently, romance scammers have been changing their tactics and defrauding their victims out of millions by encouraging them to invest in cryptocurrency that doesn’t exist.
One example of this scheme is Margaret Loke, who lost $1 million to a romance scammer who increasingly encouraged Loke to invest in cryptocurrency.
Loke’s account was eventually frozen, and the scammer demanded that she send more money to release her funds.
Scammers have even used poor dating tactics like love bombing to steal money from their victims.
These fraudsters have previously used dating apps and online chats to "bombard" victims with love and attention until they are ready to share their fortunes with someone they have never met, according to Ronnie Tokazowski, a principal threat advisor at a phishing protection firm, Cofense.
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