The Naked TruthUnlucky in love: how to keep your money safe from online scammers and avoid a broken heart

As more Hongkongers fall for romance traps set by strangers they never meet in person, experts advise extra caution when the compliments fly from afar and to keep your friends close to help avoid disastrous decisions

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Beware the potential partner that sounds too good to be true. Online scammers target middle-aged women and men looking for love. lllustration: Marcelo Duhalde

Published: 11:18am, 3 Jun 2018Updated: 11:18am, 3 Jun 2018

Who doesn’t yearn to be loved? Another Hong Kong woman recently learned the hard way that love can be illusory and extremely costly.

The accounts supervisor, in her 50s, was not only conned out of her life savings but also money borrowed from family, friends and banks totalling HK$26.4 million (US$3.3 million) in just 18 months. It was Hong Kong’s biggest online love scam in terms of money lost.

Earlier last month another woman was reported to have given HK$14 million over eight years to her long-distance lover to maintain what she thought was a committed romantic relationship, even though it existed only online.

Seven classic Hong Kong scams, from fake China crime probes to romance cons

Naive? Desperate? Don’t be so sure. A few of my female acquaintances were almost duped by similar scams. If not for friends and relatives warning of potential love traps, they would have joined Hong Kong’s romance scam statistics.

The latest victim was among 159 people similarly conned in the first four months of this year; 119 victims lost nearly HK$76 million between them in the first quarter of 2018.

It’s a crime to which many of us could fall victim, because these fraudsters prey on women and men who show any sign of emotional vulnerability.

Carol DeCandido, left, managing partner of Hong Kong social networking agency Mozaic, and co-founder Jacqueline Chia, right, with Blanca McDonnell at a speed dating night.

According to Dr Paul Wong Wai-ching, associate professor in the department of social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong, romance scam criminals isolate their victims from family and friends so that they will focus time and resources on the fictitious relationships.