Spending by U.S. consumers for Valentine’s Day is expected to be near record highs this year — $23.9 billion.
But the Better Business Bureau is warning people to watch exactly what they’re buying and from whom they are buying.
Matthew Shay, National Retail Federation president and CEO, said Americans are expected to pay more on Monday as COVID-19 pandemic restrictions continue to ease nationwide, with 76% of people polled saying they feel safer now to shop and celebrate than in 2020 and 2021.
“They are prepared to help (to) mark the holiday in a memorable and meaningful way,” he said.
Shoppers are forecast to spend an average of $175.41 per person on Valentine’s Day-related gifts, up from last year’s $164.76. Candy, greeting cards, jewelry and flowers remain the most popular gifts, of course, though an “evening out” at a restaurant, attending a concert or watching a movie or play inside a theater are once again popular activities, almost reaching prepandemic levels.
With the increased spending, however, comes increased dangers of falling for a financial scam purposely targeting people’s heart strings.
Back in September, a Sarcoxie resident received a Facebook message from a man claiming to be Gordon Ramsay, the famed internationally renowned chef and TV personality. The message read: “I like to get to know my fans. Where are you from?” Immediately, their conversations moved from Messenger to Google chat. Day after day, several times each day, they would speak in the private chat room, her initial skepticism waning as she became convinced she was actually speaking to the multimillionaire celebrity from the United Kingdom.
“Some of the things he said (were) very convincing,” the 50-year-old said, “very believable.” At one point, the scammer even talked about how the real-life Gordon Ramsay and his wife, Tana Ramsay, lost their son in a 2016 miscarriage. It was details like that that made him sound so authentic to her ears.
“The thing is that these people know how to groom you very well; they know how to say the right things — they suck you in,” the victim said. “It’s just so convincing — he was telling me he wanted to have kids, that we would get married, that he wanted me to move to (Los Angeles) and live with him, that he wanted me to work in one of his restaurants. (The scammer) went to great lengths.”
They certainly do, said Stephanie Garland, BBB regional director for Southwest Missouri.
“This is their profession,” she said. “This is their job. This is unfortunately what they’ve chosen to do with their time and with their life, and just like anybody who is a true professional, they are going to be focused and they’re going to delve into details. They’ll put together a profile on you … they can look on your social media feeds, see who you might find interesting, see who you might find attractive, and while this might sound pretty complicated for scammers, this is the way they make a living. So they are heavily motivated to make you fall in love with someone who doesn’t exist.”
Which is what the scammer was doing with the Sarcoxie victim — speaking to her from mid-September to late December before the hammer finally dropped, in mid-December, when she was asked to spend $1,000 in gift cards for a down payment on their new L.A.-based house, she said. She sent the scammer five non-traceable Google gift cards, each worth $200.
“He said he wanted to make sure that I was going to put forth the money to show him that I wanted to do this thing as badly as he did,” the victim said. When she asked him why he couldn’t build the house using the millions he’d earned over the years, he told her he was trying to keep their affair a secret, “that he couldn’t go through his management for that type of thing.”
Only when the scammer, still posing as Gordon Ramsay, asked her for an additional $8,500 did she cut all ties.
“I told him ‘I don’t have that kind of money.’ He was like ‘well, you don’t love me and blah, blah, blah,’” she said. She is so emotionally damaged by what happened to her she’s seeking professional counseling. “I’m not an ignorant woman,” she said. “I just fell for a scam. It happens. People don’t realize how often it happens, but it does.”
What the woman fell prey to is what the BBB and the Federal Trade Commission call a “romance scam.” According to a new FTC Data Spotlight, in the past five years people have reported losing about $1.3 billion to romance scams — more than any other FTC fraud category, Garland said. With individual losses averaging $2,400, it’s not just a matter of “flowers and candy.”
“These can happen year-round, (but) especially around Valentine’s Day … because a lot of people don’t want to be alone on that day and maybe they’re looking for love,” Garland said. “Keep in mind it’s easy and inexpensive for scammers to send flowers or chocolates, because in the long run they’ll want something from you that’s a lot more expensive.”
Sometimes, she continued, “they’ll say anything just to steal your money and your heart.”