Lexicon ·
rom-con
noun
- Stated meaning
- A romance faked by a criminal to get money or personal information.
- Operating meaning
- A courtship performed on schedule, at every stage, by someone who priced the ending before the first message.
- Origin
- British press in spring 2023, from romance and confidence trick. Cambridge Dictionary entered it that May, citing the Observer.
“This is romance fraud or, rather snappily, ‘rom-con’, a crime that’s rising due to the cost-of-living crisis,” the Observer (opens in a new window) reported in May 2023. “Official figures show almost £90m was lost to romance scams last year.” Cambridge Dictionary (opens in a new window) entered it within the month: “a situation where a criminal tricks someone into a fake romantic relationship and exploits their trust to get money or personal information out of them.”
The American figure is larger. In 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (opens in a new window) reported, “nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam, and reported losses hit a staggering $1.3 billion. The median reported loss: $4,400.” The banks built a department for it. The Observer described one British bank’s team, named Break the Spell, which works to “interrupt” customers at high risk before a payment goes out.
Under load, the con is a courtship with every variable fixed. The attention is constant, the replies are prompt, and the feelings arrive on time, because the sender has a schedule and the recipient does not. Each stage a sincere suitor might fumble is delivered without a fault, and it is the faultlessness that the bank’s team has to talk the customer out of. The name of the team concedes that the product was good.