Romance and Marriage Scams: The Warning Signs Families Miss

He said he was a Bangladeshi-origin engineer on contract in Malaysia, widowed, forty-one, looking to settle down properly this time. He wrote in careful Bangla in the mornings and English at night. He asked about her mother's blood pressure. He never asked for anything for six weeks. Then a courier company emailed about a parcel — gold jewellery and a laptop, sent as a gift — held at customs, and the release fee had to be paid from inside Bangladesh because he could not transfer from his side. Eighty-four thousand taka. She sent it. The next fee was larger.

Every family that hears this story afterwards asks the same question: how did she not see it? The honest answer is that a romance scam is not designed to be seen. It is a business, run by teams, using scripts that have been refined on thousands of people before they reached her. A romance scam in Bangladesh looks nothing like a stranger asking for money. It looks like the most attentive person you have spoken to in years.

This is an industry, not a broken heart

The people running these operations are not lonely individuals who got carried away. They work from prepared conversation guides, they run several targets at once, and they keep notes on what each person has told them. That is why the messages feel so personal — because they are, in a mechanical way. The US Federal Trade Commission's guidance on romance scams describes the same structure that reaches Bangladeshi families through matrimonial and social apps.

With 60.0 million social media users in Bangladesh as of January 2025, according to DataReportal, the pool is large enough that a team only needs a small success rate to make it worthwhile. They are not choosing you. They are working through a list, and you replied.

The scripts that reach Bangladeshi families

1. The gift stuck at customs. A parcel of gold, cash or electronics has been sent from abroad. A courier or customs officer contacts you for a clearance fee, duty, or an anti-money-laundering charge. Every element is fake, including the courier company's website. This is the most common version in Bangladesh.
2. The sudden emergency. An accident, a hospital admission, a mother in the ICU, an arrest at an airport. It always arrives at night, it is always urgent, and the amount is always just within reach.
3. The blocked account. Their salary is stuck, their card has been frozen abroad, the company has delayed payment. They only need a bridge for four days, and they will send double back.
4. The visa or ticket. They are ready to fly in and meet your family. The ticket is booked; only the visa fee, insurance or an agent's charge remains. The flight is always next week and never happens.
5. The investment turn. After weeks of affection the subject becomes a trading app, a crypto account or a foreign property scheme where they are doing well. This one often takes the largest sums, because it does not feel like giving money at all.
6. The compromise. Intimate photographs or video call recordings are requested and then used for blackmail. This targets men as often as women, and shame is what keeps the payments flowing.

Why they will not get on a video call

A person who will send forty photographs but cannot manage ninety seconds of live video is the clearest signal available, and there is always a reason. The camera is broken. The connection on the rig is bad. The company blocks video. It is not appropriate before marriage — a religious argument used cruelly, because it targets exactly the families most likely to respect it.

A short video call is not immodesty. It is basic verification, and it can be done with a guardian present, in a few seconds, with the camera on the face only. If someone will discuss nikah but not switch on a camera, the proposal is not real. What else to look for is set out in How to Spot a Fake Matrimony Profile.

The money moment

There is always a first transfer, and it is always small enough to feel reasonable. That first payment is not the theft. It is the test. Once you have sent money once, three things change: you are confirmed as someone who will pay, you now have a reason to believe the story is true, and you are too embarrassed to tell your family.

Watch for these mechanics, which are near-universal:

• The number given is a personal bKash or Nagad wallet, often in a third person's name, described as a friend or a brother-in-law.
• You are told not to mention it to anyone, framed as avoiding gossip or family interference.
• The deadline is tonight, and there is a consequence — a fine, a case, a hospital refusing treatment.
• After payment, a new fee appears that was never mentioned. There is no version of this story where the fees stop.

The rule that stops all of it: no money, in any amount, for any reason, to anyone you have not met in person and whose family your family has not met. Not a fee, not a loan, not an investment, not an emergency. Nothing before a nikah.

Who is targeted, and why it is not their fault

Scammers deliberately look for people in transition, because loneliness is a lever. Widows and widowers, divorced women who have been told their options are limited, older unmarried professionals, and families of probashis living apart from their spouses for years are all approached more often than average. Parents searching for a son or daughter are approached too.

None of this means the person was foolish. It means someone spent six weeks studying them. When a family finds out, practical support helps and blame does not — the shame is precisely what the next scammer will use.

Three checks that take twenty minutes

1. Reverse image search every photograph. Stolen photographs are the foundation of most of these profiles, and this catches many before any conversation starts.
2. Insist on a live video call early, and on your terms. Not a recorded clip, not a photo with today's date written on paper. A live call, and preferably a second one unannounced.
3. Ask for family. A real proposal has parents, siblings, a district, an address and people who will speak to your guardian. A scam has an orphan with no relatives and a demanding job. Ask to speak to one family member, and watch what happens.

The longer version of this method, including what to verify about employment and income abroad, is in How to Verify Someone You Met Online. The broader picture of matrimonial fraud in Bangladesh, including offline versions, is in Matrimony Scams in Bangladesh.

If it has already happened

Stop paying immediately, even if you are told it is the last instalment. Do not delete the account, the chat history or the transaction messages — screenshot everything, including the profile and the wallet numbers, before you block. Taking money by deception is cheating under the Penal Code 1860, and online offences may also apply, though that part of Bangladeshi law has changed recently, so confirm the current position with a lawyer.

Report to the police cyber crime unit, inform your mobile financial service provider, and tell one person in your family the same day. Recovery is difficult, but the speed of the first twenty-four hours matters more than anything else. Keeping your own information tight makes you a much harder target — the subject of Protecting Your Privacy on a Matrimony Site.

Search where identity is checked first

Most of these approaches simply cannot start on a platform where every account is tied to a verified identity. On amarjibon, each profile is NID-verified with a liveness selfie check, so the person in the photograph is the person typing. Your phone number stays private until you choose to share it, you can block and report from any conversation, and families can be part of the process from the first message — which is itself one of the strongest protections there is, because scams depend on secrecy.

amarjibon is a matrimony platform for people serious about marriage, bilingual in English and বাংলা. Creating a profile is free.

Related reading

• Bangladeshi Matrimony in Japan and South Korea
• Muslim Marriage Biodata Format (with Example)
• Marriage Biodata for Doctors, Engineers and Government Officers

**Create your free profile on amarjibon.com, or download the app on Google Play or the App Store.** Marriage, taken seriously.