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What to Know About the Innocent People Romance Scammers Use as Bait

For over eight years, romance scammers have stolen Tupelo resident Hunter Bigham's photos to create hundreds of fake online profiles. Victims who realize they've been duped often track Bigham down, harassing him and his family.
Bigham has tallied roughly $1.4 million in losses from victims who contacted him, while some individuals have threatened to hurt him and his family, injecting dread into his daily life.
Former U.S. Army colonel Bryan Denny co-founded Advocating Against Romance Scammers after his own photos were stolen, reporting more than 3,000 fraudulent profiles to Facebook.
Meta says new AI tests cut impersonation reports by over 80%, though Bigham's reports to Facebook and the FBI yielded little action, prompting his calls for mandatory identification.
Vanishing from public view feels like being forced back into the closet for Bigham, a gay man in the American South, who struggles with protecting his identity online.

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PHOTO ESSAY: How being used as romance scammers’ bait upended one man’s world – WTOP News

TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — The victims knew him as a widowed petroleum geologist in Houston. An oil rig worker in Scotland. A Spanish secret agent named John. Each online persona was fake, concocted by romance scammers to trick the lovesick out of their money. And each bore the face of one man: Hunter Bigham. For...

2 hours ago·Chevy Chase, United States

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The Toronto Star

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What to know about the innocent people romance scammers use as bait

TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — By now, most Westerners have heard about the victims of romance scams: the people conned out of their money after falling in love with fake online

2 hours ago·Toronto, Canada

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