Things to Do in L.A. She thought she talking to her favorite celebrity. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . Abigail Ruvalcaba was intrigued when a handsome daytime soap opera actor she'd been watching for years reached out to her in a Facebook message. His rugged exterior softened by his piercing blue eyes and an almost shy smile disarmed her.

EXCLUSIVE: As romance scams are on the rise, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is introducing new legislation aimed at holding accountable those who seek to defraud retirees and steal their hard-earned savings. U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., and Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., introduced the Romance Scam Prevention Act, which would require dating apps and services to issue fraud ban notifications to users who have interacted with a person removed from the app. The move came as Americans are more than ever connected thanks to social media and dating apps that allow us to stay in touch with old friends all over the world and to develop new relationships online. As Americans increasingly go online in search of relationships, scammers are following suit. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in 2022 almost 70,000 people reported being victims of a romance scam.

Loneliness has never been more urgent. On top of the significant mental health concerns, the idea that people are now lonelier and having fewer social interactions is fueling very real threats to security. Foremost among these is one of today's most pernicious digital frauds: romance scams, which exploit targets' feelings of isolation and net fraudsters hundreds of millions of dollars per year. As scammers increasingly organize their workflows and incorporate new AI technologies, it's becoming possible for them to deploy these scams at an even more vast scale. Romance scams, also known as confidence scams, are extremely communication-intensive. They require attackers to build relationships with their targets via dating apps and social media.

Tech expert Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson joins "Fox & Friends" to warn of new cyberscams and offer tips on how to avoid them. "Love is blind" takes on a more sinister meaning when so-called artificial intelligence (AI) becomes a tool for exploiting our deepest human emotions. Convincing AI technologies are increasingly targeting mature online daters, turning fantasies into lucrative and dangerous criminal enterprises. Romance scams have become the most common type of fraud in 2025 and have swindled would-be lovers out of over 1.3 billion in the United States alone. Just last year, the world heard the cautionary tale of a 53-year-old French woman who lost 850,000 to a convincing AI deepfake of Brad Pitt.

After losing her husband, "Beatrice" turned to an online dating site for seniors during the COVID-19 pandemic. She quickly matched with and fell hard for a person she thought was a 66-year-old Spanish lumberjack who looked uncannily like her husband. "I was missing not having him here to talk about, you know, what was going on in the world and everything," Beatrice, who asked that her real name not be used, told Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). "So, somebody suggested to go online through a dating service… and this guy's pictures show up and he's just, you know, no George Clooney, nothing gorgeous, but in fact, he had a resemblance to my husband." The man spent about four months texting and calling the woman before he felt he had gained her trust – then, he began asking her to wire him money.

The saying goes that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is - and that's certainly the case when it comes to online dating. Research by ExpressVPN has revealed that a staggering 22 per cent of Britons have fallen victim to catfishing in their lifetime. While catfishing can occur on almost any online platform, Tinder remains one of the key apps where perpetrators prey on unsuspecting victims. One person who knows all too well how easy it is to get tricked on the dating app is Cecilie Fjellhoy, who was famously duped by the'Tinder Swindler'. Now, Ms Fjellhoy has spoken to MailOnline about her experience, in the hopes of stopping anyone else from being conned.

Celebrity matchmaker Alessandra Conti tells Fox News Digital about the rise in AI bots being used to catfish people in the dating world. Let's face it – online dating has always been a bit of a circus. Between ghosting, catfishing and breadcrumbing, it's a wonder anyone finds romance at all. It's safe to say online dating is a downright chore these days. CLICK TO GET KURT'S FREE CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH SECURITY ALERTS, QUICK TIPS, TECH REVIEWS AND EASY HOW-TO'S TO MAKE YOU SMARTER Remember those cringe-worthy dinner dates where you dropped a hundred bucks only to realize you'd never see the person again?

The recent emergence of artificial intelligence chatbots has already changed the world. From ChatGPT, to Microsoft's Bing AI, and Google's newly released Bard, the advancement in human technology is going to have a huge effect on how humans operate. But while AI might provide a new dawn for technology, there are a number of serious and unsettling threats. What if, for example, you find out you've been speaking to an AI chatbot for days, thinking it's a human? Dating apps have transformed the way in which we find love.

You can help prevent others from falling victim to the same romance scam and remember if something seems too good to be true. Get ready for this quick heartbreaking story about love gone wrong from a crafty and callous global dating scam artist. CLICK TO GET KURT'S CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH QUICK TIPS, TECH REVIEWS, SECURITY ALERTS AND EASY HOW-TO'S TO MAKE YOU SMARTER I recently received an email from Linda, who is concerned and wondering if she should worry about falling for a scam from a person she's been talking to online. Here's what she had to say: "I have been in contact with a man who is a Structural Engineer that says he lives and has his office in Wisconsin, but currently is in Dubai overseeing the construction of buildings that he was awarded a contract to build, we talk on the phone all the time and text all the time. He has shared everything that I have asked.

Valentine's Day is behind us, but romance scams remain alive and dwell online, with fake suitors' latest goal to get you to invest in cryptocurrency. Romance scams, in which an online scammer leads a person on with talk of love and then swindles them, do not end after the roses and chocolates are delivered. The FBI issued an alert last week about victims of romance fraud losing $1 billion in 2021. Similarly, romance scams reported to the Federal Trade Commission rose 80% in 2021, with victims losing $547 million. These numbers are likely low, both agencies said.