Romantic Fraud: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warns of the growing trend in online dating scams, where scammers convince individuals they meet on dating apps or social media to invest in or trade virtual currencies. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported over 1,800 complaints about romance scams involving cryptocurrency in the first seven months of 2021, with losses totaling $133 million.
Alternatively, scammers may pose as legitimate virtual currency traders or create fake exchanges to deceive individuals into giving them money. Other cryptocurrency transaction scams include fraudulent sales of individual retirement accounts using cryptocurrency. Then a direct hack of cryptocurrency occurs, where criminals infiltrate digital wallets where individuals store their virtual currency to steal it.