Hi, I'm Erica Pandy, and welcome to Axios Recap, where we dig into one big story. It's Wednesday, October 27th, and we're focused on online romance scams.

The pandemic has had many older Americans feeling lonely and turning to online dating websites to find a connection.

Many were trying to find love and thought they had, but were left with a broken heart

and an empty wallet. The Federal Trade Commission reports that a record $304 million was lost

to online romance scams in 2020. That's of about 50% from 2019. An adult 60 years and older alone lost $139 million to online romance frauds in 2020.

That's a huge increase from the $84 million the year before.

How can the most vulnerable be protected from online criminals?

In a moment, the Washington Post's Michelle Singletary on the uptick in scams.

And we're joined now by the Washington Post's personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary,

who's been reporting on online romance scams. Hey, Michelle. Hi, thank you for having me.

Thanks for being here. So, Michelle, the FTC reported that online romance scams have surged nearly 50% since 2019.

What's going on here?

So a lot of that has to do with the pandemic, actually.

The pandemic pushed a lot of people online. I mean, people were moving towards that way, but with social distancing and things being shut down, more and more people

were online shopping and meeting people. And that has pushed up the incidents of fraud.

The criminals know people are online and they go after them in these romance scams.

And what are some examples of how these online romantic relationships that turn into scams,

how do they even begin?

So a lot of them begin on dating apps.

People put up their profiles, and the criminals create fake profiles,

often using images that they've gotten on the internet,

and they communicate and open up lines

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