Beth Hyland thought she met the love of her life on Tinder.
In reality, this administrative assistant from Michigan was the victim of an online scam by a person who falsely claimed to be a Frenchman named “Richard.” He used deepfake videos during Skype calls and posted photos of another man to deceive his victim.
A “deepfake” is a fake video or audio recording created using artificial intelligence (AI) to look and sound authentic. Such forgeries are often difficult to identify without specialized tools.
In just a few months, 53-year-old Hyland took out loans totaling $26.000, sent the money to “Richard” and became the victim of a classic scam known as emotional luring or “pig slaughter,” a name that alludes to the unscrupulous way in which scammers manipulate their victims.
The British government predicts that as many as 2025 million deepfakes will be distributed worldwide in 8, compared to 500.000 in 2023.
According to a January report by cybersecurity company McAfee, about a fifth of those recordings will be used in dating scams.
"It's like grieving for someone who has died," Hyland said.
"When I saw him in the video, he looked just like the photos he had sent me before. It was a little blurry, but I didn't know what a deepfake was at the time," she added.
Manipulations and lies
Beth Hyland lives in Portage, about 230 miles west of Detroit, and had been divorced for four years when she started dating again. She matched with a man on Tinder whose profile seemed to be a perfect match for hers.
Now, he says, he believes that this "perfect match" was carefully planned.
“Richard” claimed to have been born in Paris, but to live in Indiana and work as a freelance project manager for a construction firm that required frequent travel, including to Qatar.
Months of emotional manipulation, lies, fake photos, and artificial intelligence-engineered Skype calls followed. The con man promised her eternal love, but always found reasons to cancel every potential encounter.
A few weeks after they matched on Tinder, “Richard” convinced Beth that he needed her help to pay for a lawyer and translator in Qatar.
"I told him I was going to take out loans, and he started crying, telling me that no one had ever loved him like I did," Hyland said.
But “Richard” continued to ask for more money, and when Hyland finally told her financial advisor what was happening, he told her she was most likely the victim of a love scam.
"I couldn't believe it, but I couldn't ignore it either," she said.
Hyland confronted “Richard” with the accusation; he initially denied everything, but then fell silent when she asked him to “prove he was wrong” and return her money.
Police told her they could not proceed with the case because there was “no coercion, threat or use of force,” according to a letter from the director of public safety in Portage, which Reuters has seen.
The Public Safety Office did not respond to a request for comment from the British agency.
In an email sent to Hyland by Tinder after she reported the fraudulent account, which Reuters also saw, the company said it removes users who violate its terms of service or guidelines.
Although Tinder said it could not share the outcome of the investigation due to privacy rules, it did point out that Beth Hyland's report was "evaluated" and "actions were taken in accordance with our policies."
A Tinder spokesperson said the company has a "zero tolerance" for scammers, uses artificial intelligence to identify potential scammers and warn users, and offers informational brochures about dating scams.
In March, Hyland attended a Senate committee hearing, where a bill was introduced that would require dating apps to remove fraudulent accounts and notify users who have come into contact with fake profiles.
The senator who proposed the bill said that Beth Hyland's story shows why such regulations are necessary.
Generally, dating apps do not notify users that they have communicated with a scammer after the account has been removed, nor do they send them warnings about how to protect themselves from scams - which the new law would require.
According to FBI data, in the United States, more than $2023 billion in damages were reported in 4 due to so-called "pig slaughter" - scams in which victims are emotionally manipulated into giving money.
Microsoft, which owns Skype, directed Reuters to blog posts explaining to users how to prevent dating scams and what steps the company has taken to combat AI-generated content - including adding watermarks to images.
The company did not want to comment on the Beth Hyland case.
Jason Lane Sellers, director of fraud and identity at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, said that only 7% of fraud is reported because victims are often held back by shame.
The artificial intelligence arms race
Jorij Abraham, executive director of the Netherlands-based Global Anti-Scam Alliance, a consumer protection organization, said that people will soon no longer be able to recognize manipulated media content.
“In two or three years it will be AI against AI,” he said.
"There is software that can monitor your conversation, watch your eyes, whether they blink, these are signals that indicate something is happening, which the human eye cannot see, but the software can."
Lane Sellers described this fight as an “artificial intelligence arms race” between fraudsters and companies dedicated to fighting fraud and protecting consumers and businesses.
Richard Whittle, an artificial intelligence expert at the University of Salford Business School in northern England, said he expects future deepfake detection technologies to be built into hardware, by companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft, which have access to users' webcams.
Neither Apple nor Google responded to Reuters' requests for comment on how they protect users from deepfakes, nor on the development of their future products in this area.
Abraham added that the real challenge is finding the fraudsters themselves, who often operate from countries other than those where their victims are located.
Despite her case hitting a wall, Hyland still believes it's important to report scams and help authorities crack down on scammers.
He also wants everyone who has been victimized to know that it is not their fault.
"I learned new expressions… We don't 'lose' money or 'give' it away - it's stolen from us. We don't 'fall for' scams - we are manipulated and turned into victims."
Translation: NB
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