In a world where love is just a click away, romance scams are finding new ways to steal hearts—and wallets—with a little help from artificial intelligence.
Behind the sweet words and perfect pictures, a growing number of online scammers are using technology to craft the perfect love story for all the wrong reasons. This technology put one of our own NBC Chicago colleagues in the middle of an international love scam.
We’re used to seeing DS Shin behind the camera, making many of us look good on social media as the station’s senior digital video producer.
But in his personal life, Shin has a pretty large online following of his own - mostly for being, well, cute and photogenic.
“I post selfies a lot. I post, you know, cute photos whenever I'm out and stuff like that,” he said.
But among his legion of adoring followers, there’s at least one who’s been lurking in the shadows—stealing his photos and running a scam for years.
“Since 2021, I've been getting random messages from women on Instagram saying that someone's using my photos to create fake accounts on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook,” Shin said.
"I heard of this person using my photo in Hinge, one on Grindr..some website in China,” he shared.
NBC 5 Responds
Shin said some of his images have also received weird makeovers - thanks to AI.
“They like altered it using those like photo applications. So they would add like glasses or mustache to make it better,” said Shin.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter.
This isn’t some rare occurrence.
According to a new report by Norton, “Nearly one in three (27%) people on dating apps reported seeing their own photos being used by a profile that didn’t belong to them."
At first flattered, DS said that changed when he learned the scammer had conned one woman in the Philippines out of $10,000.
“I got dozen more messages from different people. So I can only imagine how much money was scammed and involved with this,” he said.
How does this happen?
According to that Norton report, less than half of all people surveyed could tell the difference between a real image and an AI-generated image.
In January, a French woman made headlines after she admitted she sent close to a million euros to an online love interest she thought was Brad Pitt.
Eventually Shin said he tracked down one of the imposters through a Facebook audio call.
“What he told me is that I shouldn't judge him for what he's doing because the life is different where he's at and he's just doing stuff to make his life better,” Shin said.
Unfortunately, whether you’re the target or the targeted - Shin found help from social media platforms is limited.
“I went to those profiles and then I asked for the removal because it's a fake profile. But over and over again, I've been getting denied of those reports,” he said.
After NBC 5 Responds reached out to Meta and TikTok, they finally took down the profiles using Shin’s stolen images.
TikTok provides guidance on how to report imposter accounts here.
Earlier this week, Meta posted information about how people can protect themselves against romance scams.
Key Takeaways
- If you’re online dating, do a reverse image search of anyone you’re getting serious with. But fair warning here - if the image has been altered, like Shin’s were, the search may not work.
- If you’re worried about your images or profile being stolen - try adding a phrase like ‘this is my only account’ in your bio.
- Lastly, consider making your profiles private.
