Love..OR LIES?

Romance fraud is, sadly, on the increase - meet two women affected and find out how to stay safe

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Finding yourself single in later life can feel terribly lonely. And when it comes to finding love again, there are many potential pitfalls - from families having to adjust to a new person and sharing a home, right through to worries over inheritance and who has access to the money.

While most late-life love stories have happy outcomes, unscrupulous fraudsters are always on the lookout for vulnerable people - especially when there are pension pots and death-inservice payouts to plunder.

A report from Lloyds Bank found that romance scams rose by 22% during 2023 compared to the previous year. Those aged 65 to 74 lose the highest amount of money - £13,123 on average-but men and women aged 55 to 64 are most likely to be targeted by fraudsters. Cases in this age group rose by almost 49% compared to 2022. Here, two women share their stories of love gone wrong.

Carolyn Stephens, a professor at University College London, tells journalist Sue Mitchell how she became estranged from her father Vincent for four years.

In 2012, Carolyn waved goodbye to her widowed father as he headed off to Cyprus on a Saga holiday. Vincent was 78 and comfortably retired after a career as an electrical engineer. On his return he introduced Carolyn, his only child, to Iris, a 75-year-old woman with whom he had struck up a friendship on holiday.

At first she was pleased that her dad, 'who had been so terribly lonely without Mum,' had found a new 'companion', but she was less pleased when Iris, widowed herself, started answering her dad's phone for him and making it difficult for her to see him.