Victims of ‘romance scams’ turn to Congress for help

WASHINGTON — Four years after getting divorced, Beth Hyland, 54, decided it was finally time to start dating again. She had never used dating apps, but her work colleagues had found luck meeting significant others online.

“So, I thought I’d try it,” Hyland told NBC News in an interview this month. Eventually, she met someone who appeared to be her perfect match: “Richard,” who claimed to be a French project manager for a construction company, began texting and talking on the phone constantly with Hyland. 

But “Richard” wasn’t who he said he was. Hyland just didn’t know it yet — and her story, and hundreds like it, would soon inspire federal legislation in Congress.

Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., have introduced a bill that would require dating apps and social media companies to remove or flag scammers from their platforms and issue notifications to users who interact with those accounts. 

At a mark-up of the bill earlier this month, Blackburn introduced Hyland, who was seated in the Senate Commerce Committee hearing room in the Capitol: “I do want to recognize Beth Hyland,” Blackburn said. “She is a survivor of this crime. She drove nine hours to be here in the audience with us today.”

One month into her relationship with “Richard,” Hyland was so in love that she didn’t think twice when asked for financial help. “We professed our undying love for each other,” she said. “They call it love bombing, where they just constantly bombard you with compliments and terms of endearment.” 

She thought she had met “the one,” and “Richard” even proposed to her. Hyland started looking at houses for them in her hometown of Portage, Michigan, and sent photos of engagement rings in preparation for their eventual nuptials.  

But it wasn’t a fairy tale ending for Hyland. 

“Richard” told her he had to go to Qatar for a construction project, and he was expecting to share with Hyland the “huge” payout he’d get for it. But in the meantime, he said his bank account was locked.

“Why wouldn’t I help my fiancé if I knew the money was coming back?” Hyland said. Soon after his request, she took out loans for $26,000 and transferred the money to “Richard” using bitcoin. That was when “Richard” told her there would be a $50,000 activation fee to get the money into his account. 

That was when Hyland started to feel reluctant about sending “Richard” money, so she contacted her trusted financial adviser.  

“Something told me to tell him the whole story,” Hyland said, and she did. She recalled her financial adviser telling her, “Beth, I hate to be the one to tell you this, I think you’re in a romance scam.”

At first, Hyland couldn’t believe it. “It shattered the future, the dreams that we had,” she said. After a week, Hyland decided to cut him off. 

“He kept trying to come back, saying, ‘How could you accuse me of this? How could you?’” Hyland said. She recalled that “Richard” even threatened suicide on the phone in an attempt to win her back. 

“But I’m like, ‘No, this is done. I’ve got to move forward,’” she told NBC News in the Capitol.

“Richard” ended up being a Nigerian scammer, part of a group known as the “Yahoo boys” — one of many criminal organizations that has scammed victims out of billions of dollars. Law enforcement was never able to catch Hyland’s scammer, and she said they didn’t take her seriously, either.

Hyland said she felt embarrassed and stupid for being scammed, but her financial adviser assured her that, unfortunately, people are scammed on dating apps more than she could imagine. 

“In the physical world, there are laws against this,” Blackburn told NBC News in an interview. “They have not been applied to the virtual space, and most people realize it is past time to put some protections in place on the virtual space.”

The legislation passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee last week on a bipartisan basis, but bills that crack down on big tech often get slow-walked in Congress.

Blackburn, who has been leading the charge on advocating for more regulations on tech, also cowrote the Kids Online Safety Act with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat. That bill would require social media companies to better protect minors online and provide guardians with more control of their children’s use of platforms. It passed the Senate easily last July, 91-3, but then stalled in the Republican-controlled House. 

“They should be making their platforms safe, just as in the physical space we make the public square safe, but they are choosing not to,” Blackburn said of social media companies. “The social media companies have proven through the years that they will not do this on their own. … Their lack of desire to protect individuals on their platforms is disgusting.”

April Helm, a journalist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has dedicated her life to spreading awareness about romance scams and helping victims after her 70-year-old mother was scammed out of $350,000. 

After her mother met a much younger man online, Helm knew something was off with the new love interest. 

“She said she’d be careful, but within two or three weeks, she got a picture from a young man about 40 years old, really attractive, and she said she met someone online. And I could tell that it was a scam instantly.” Helm said in an interview. 

Helm said that her mother, a widow and recent cancer survivor, ended up losing her house, her car and eventually her life as a result of the scam.

“Scammers try to keep you delirious, because that helps you with your thinking,” Helm said. “You’re not thinking clearly, and you make bad decisions. I think that he had kept her up for so long, for so many nights, that she was exhausted and she rolled out of bed and that’s how she broke her neck.”

Since her mom’s death, Helm started a podcast dedicated to telling “scammer stories,” sharing accounts from hundreds of victims and their family members and using real-world stories to inform her listeners of red flags to look for when dating online. 

Helm said that scammers on dating websites will often try to get victims off the app they’re on as fast as possible and get them on one like WhatsApp, which she said isn’t tracked as much. Once done, “the quicker they can start asking you for money and grooming you,” Helm said. 

Scammers will also ask their victims a lot of questions to learn about their lives. Helm said too many personal questions too soon can be a sign you’re speaking with a scammer.

“No man, in real life, is that interested in your life,” she joked.

While there are resources to help prevent romance scams, Helm is skeptical that Congress will be able pass any laws that actually stop them. 

“They need to come up with more speed bumps, but that will just slow them down. They’ll find workarounds,” she said. 

Like Helm, Hyland said it’s critical for victims of romance scams to speak out. 

“I remember just bawling on the floor in utter despair, sobbing,” Hyland said. 

“But I made a decision right away. I said, ‘I’m not gonna let this destroy me. This is gonna hurt. I need to deal with the emotions,’” she said. “‘I’m gonna advocate. I’m gonna fight for victims.’”