Is the person I met online a romance scammer?

How to spot this scam

• Planned video calls keep collapsing. A broken camera, a dead zone on the rig, security rules on the base. Three cancellations is an answer.
• Love bombing inside the first week, and they mirror your hobbies, your humour, your turns of phrase, then move the conversation to WhatsApp or Telegram.
• The job writes itself: offshore engineer, deployed officer, widowed surgeon on a UN contract. Something that explains why they can never be in the same room as you.
• The photos have no life around them. No friends, no tagged posts, an account created last month. Reverse image search returns either a different name or nothing at all, and nothing at all can mean an AI-generated face.
• The first ask is small, a $60 phone card, and it is a test. The $1,850 customs fee follows it.
• Every request is for money you cannot claw back: gift card codes, crypto, a wire. Never a card payment you could dispute.

What to do now

1. Ask for a live video call today, camera on, and have them follow a random instruction in real time: touch your left ear, hold up today's date. Note which excuse arrives instead.
2. Run the photos through Google Lens or TinEye. A match under another name settles it. Check for warped earrings, hair that melts into the background, mismatched pupils.
3. Treat gift card codes like cash in an envelope. Once read out, no bank claws them back.
4. Send nothing you cannot dispute. Someone who loves you will accept a plane ticket booked in their name instead of a wire.
5. Report the profile in the app and at reportfraud.ftc.gov, then block. If you sent crypto, tell the exchange within 24 hours. The tearful apology that follows is part of the act.