Greg's Corner

Romance scam even hits Congress

Previously, we’ve posted about how online romance scams have affected people from all walks of life. From an older gentleman who refused to believe the warnings of his family to a woman who stole millions of dollars from her employer in order to pay someone she thought she was in a relationship with. With many of these scams, the scammers tend to pose as military personnel in order to give the illusion that they’re serving overseas. Now news has come out that the scam has even reached the halls of Congress.

Representative Adam Kinzinger from Illinois has been the victim of many romance scams but not in the way you might think. Representative Kinzinger is also a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard. This means that his likeness has been used multiple times in a number of romance scams. Rep. Kinzinger has said that he has had victims of the scams that have used his pictures visit him in the US Capitol looking for some form of justice. This has caused Rep. Kinzinger to call on social media outlets to do a better job in weeding out these scammers. Seeing the number of victims affected by military romance scams has even prompted Rep. Kinzinger to start to draft legislation that would compel social media platforms to do more to try to prevent these scams.

Rep. Kinzinger has had his likeness used in these scams since 2008 after he was stationed in Iraq as an Air Force pilot. Reportedly, victims of the scams have lost thousands of dollars to scammers using Kinzinger’s images. Kinzinger’s staff even pour through social media looking for phony accounts that bear Kinzinger’s likeness showing just how far these scammers are willing to go to fleece their victims out of their money. Sadly, even when Kinzinger’s office reports these scammers to the various social media platforms, the scammers just open new accounts and continue the cycle.