South Korean Crypto Exchanges Blocked $82m Worth of Romance Scam Transactions

[Cordillerabit]

South Korean crypto exchanges say they blocked over $82 million worth of transactions linked to romance scams last year.

Per Seoul Shinmun, the crypto exchange Coinone claimed catfishing and other romantic scams that make use of crypto were now “rampant” in South Korea.

Coinone said that it had halted over $2.6 million worth of romance scam-linked trades. The firm said it used an “abnormal transaction detection system” and “24-hour monitoring” network to protect customers.

The announcement comes days after a warning from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

On January 22, the FSS claimed that there had been a rise in crypto-related scams on social media sites.

The regulator told the public to beware of romance scammers. The FSS also warned of the dangers of unsolicited investment-related “recommendations and advice.”

Source: https://cryptonews.com/news/south-korean-crypto-exchanges-blocked-82m-worth-of-romance-scam-transactions-in-2023.htm

[Charles-Tim]

So they are announcing it to their citizens and to the world so that it can easily be known that those exchanges are centralized and can be avoided in a way noncustodial wallet can be used for the scam.

It is not about blocking something like this that is more important. The most important thing is that people should learn how to avoid this scam and other scam but most people will not learn until they fall victim.

[TomPluz]

One thing for sure: LOVE is a very dangerous thing when someone you learned to trust and starting to get romantic turn out to be a scammer. I can only think of the horrendous experience the victims got into. I used to be viewing Youtube videos on romance scams and one thing for sure the victims are dealing with scam artists and they are very much trained on how to make a person believe all the things promised to them...even the promise of bliss of a wedding until such a time when the whole thing is revealed to be a big sham. Seeing the opportunity and the convenience of cryptocurrency, romance scammers are turning to cryptocurrency to consummate transactions. As a centralized platform, Coinone and other Korean exchanges can be doing its part to stop these scams, maybe also at the requests of the victims and the government. This episode will never be the last because for as long as people are not educated to hold the line and question everything they are dealing with, the same story will be popping up from time to time.

[hugeblack]

This is the first time I heard the term romance scams, and I did not think that some people might get into financial problems with those they love, as relationships are mostly emotional, not material, and even the material ones are devoid of feelings.
In general, it is dangerous to tell your friends or anyone close to you about what you are investing, especially if it is a difficult asset to track, such as Bitcoin, whose value can rise quickly, and some investment recommendations may be very wrong.

[bhadz]

Good job for them, this is needed for them to take action and even those victims will be reminded that they should take care of their own money. If they can't do anything with it then the platforms themselves can do actions like this.

This is the first time I heard the term romance scams, and I did not think that some people might get into financial problems with those they love, as relationships are mostly emotional, not material, and even the material ones are devoid of feelings.
In general, it is dangerous to tell your friends or anyone close to you about what you are investing, especially if it is a difficult asset to track, such as Bitcoin, whose value can rise quickly, and some investment recommendations may be very wrong.

Here in my country, there are bunch of it and usually the victims are the old women that still hope of finding their love of their lives. One story was like an old woman waited at the airport for so long not knowing that she was scammed by the person she's chatting and developed her to be in love.

[bitterguy28]

South Korean crypto exchanges say they blocked over $82 million worth of transactions linked to romance scams last year.

At least the South Korean Government loved their people that much as they can track those scammers that is victimizing innocent people that only seeks love and caress  .

In my country this has been happening for long that mostly victims are those not so rich people but some of them are also greedy that believes it is Love with wealth lol.

[Charles-Tim]

This is the first time I heard the term romance scams, and I did not think that some people might get into financial problems with those they love, as relationships are mostly emotional, not material, and even the material ones are devoid of feelings.
In general, it is dangerous to tell your friends or anyone close to you about what you are investing, especially if it is a difficult asset to track, such as Bitcoin, whose value can rise quickly, and some investment recommendations may be very wrong.

Romance scam are scam that scammers look for victims online like on social media and dating sites. The scammer can be a man but play as a girl. The scammer can be a girl and play as a man. The scammer can also be a man and act like a man but fake one. They will have some photo edit of someone and claiming to be the person. There are different ones. I think you would have heard about it before. It is common. The victim would not have seen the scammer before but fall for the person and send him or her money. They will continue to request for money until the victim realized that he or she has been scammed.

At least the South Korean Government loved their people that much as they can track those scammers that is victimizing innocent people that only seeks love and caress  .

In my country this has been happening for long that mostly victims are those not so rich people but some of them are also greedy that believes it is Love with wealth lol.

Can you not see this as half of the story. The full story would be when we know the total scam sum of money that scammers and hackers were able to steal from Koreans and how much is recovered. If we can know that, we would know that the best thing you can do for yourself is to learn how to avoid scam and hack. Knowledge is power.

[Nwada001]

This is good news, but this is the first time I notice that these scammers who use relationships to scam their victims actually have the name "Romans scam." Looking at the report, at first I was thinking it was a scam, linking Roman citizens as the victims.
 
If they were able to seize this, it's actually great; at least some of those scammers will be caught, and it will reduce the number of scams that will still take place in that area for now unless those have other means of still going after their victims.
 
And all these people, why do they even fall for someone they have not seen before up to the extent of developing trust and start sending them money all in the name of love? Or, whatever the case, maybe some scam looks so funny and stupid to me.

[Sokani]

Well... Romance scam doesn't strike me as something new, scammers have been using online dating sites and social media to rip off people.

But I thought the exchange would give more details how they're able to detect and block these transactions. The story the came up with about calling and alerting a user of a potential scam attempt doesn't make sense. It looks like they just want to be in the spotlight following the announcement of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

[sampoerna]

"Romance scammers," according to the news, are affiliated with illegal crypto exchanges. And the initial problem is that there is "Romance" here which develops into their trust in someone they don't even know. After investigating, it turns out that in Korea there are many Romance groups which are one way for scammers to carry out their actions, by becoming members and caring about their potential victims. In fact, from this news, one of them became so confident in someone in the romance scam circle that he didn't mind transferring his crypto assets to the scammers' personal wallets. And very fortunately, Coinone, the leading crypto exchange in Korea, was aware of a suspicious transaction on this account. So they contacted the account owner which then became one of the reasons they developed an evaluation and research regarding this Romance scam. Because it turns out that there have been many similar cases that have resulted in many people losing their assets.

From the conditions that occur in Korea, we can draw several conclusions and lessons to avoid various types of scams:
1. Make sure we first analyze any group or community before actually joining and dedicating ourselves to it.
2. Never trust anyone, whether it's a friend, acquaintance, or someone you think is in a close romance but only in cyberspace like this, because they could be part of an organized scammer.
3. Make sure we analyze every project / investment / program proposed by someone, whether in community channels, in groups, social media, submitted by influencers, or anyone in various other forums, because we don't know at first, to determine whether are they scammers or not, or is it worth it or not.

[MUGNIA]

Here in my country, there are bunch of it and usually the victims are the old women that still hope of finding their love of their lives. One story was like an old woman waited at the airport for so long not knowing that she was scammed by the person she's chatting and developed her to be in love.

but I think not all women are like that, even many men are fooled by pictures of beautiful women even though it's a man's account, cyber romance is very risky if you don't cheat or vice versa.