What to Do When Someone You Met Online Asks for Money

Published 16 October 2026

This page is for the moment the request arrives. If you are looking for how these relationships develop over weeks and what the earlier warning signs are, that is romance scams abroad. What follows assumes the message is already on your screen and you are trying to decide what to do about it.

The answer is short. Do not send money, gifts, cryptocurrency or financial details to anyone you have only ever known online, for any reason, however small the amount and however convincing the explanation. That is the whole rule, and nothing in the rest of this page softens it. The rest exists because following it is harder than reading it, and because of what to do next. This sits within our dating safety advice.

Why the Request Rarely Looks Like a Scam

If it looked like fraud, nobody would fall for it, and a great many careful people do. Three things make a genuine-seeming request effective.

It is small. The first ask is usually modest and framed as temporary — an amount you could lose without much pain. Agreeing feels generous rather than reckless. What it establishes is that you are someone who sends money, and the next request will not be small.

It arrives after real investment. By the time it comes you have spent weeks or months on this. Refusing feels like accusing someone you care about of something ugly, on no evidence, over a sum you can afford. That discomfort is not incidental; it is what the preceding months were building.

It has an explanation you cannot check. A hospital in another country, a customs office, a frozen account, a contract. The story is designed to sit just beyond your ability to verify — which, when you have recently moved countries yourself, is a wider zone than it used to be.

The Framings You Will Recognise

Different stories, one structure: an urgent need, a reason you cannot check it, and a payment method that is hard to reverse.

A medical emergency, for them or a family member.
A flight, a visa or travel documents so they can finally come and see you.
Customs or clearance fees to release a parcel, a package or an inheritance.
A business opportunity, a contract or a payment stuck in transit.
An investment or trading platform they recommend, often with a deadline.
A frozen or blocked account, with a request to use yours temporarily.
Money arriving in your account that you are asked to forward on.
A small loan, repaid promptly, before a larger one that is not.

The last two are not only a financial risk. Receiving and forwarding funds for someone else can make you a money mule, which is a criminal offence in many countries even when you did not know what the money was. The FBI's guidance warns specifically against sending money, sharing financial information and acting as a go-between for transfers (FBI, Romance Scams, consulted 16 October 2026).

The First Hour

You do not have to decide anything immediately, and the urgency in the message is itself a reason to slow down. In order:

Do not send anything. Not money, not card details, not a photograph of a document, not gift card codes.
Do not reply yet. There is no answer you owe within the hour.
Screenshot everything — the request, the conversation around it, the profile, any account name, bank detail or wallet address you have been given. Do this before anything else, because accounts disappear.
Say it out loud to one person you trust. In full, not in summary. This is the single most effective step on the page, and the one people skip because the summary sounds embarrassing. It sounds different out loud than it does in your head, which is exactly the point.
Run the basic checks. A reverse image search on the photographs, and a search for a distinctive phrase from their messages — scripts are reused and often posted publicly by others. How to verify a dating profile has the detail.
Notice what happens when you do not answer. Someone genuine is disappointed. A script escalates: more urgency, guilt, anger, or a sudden new crisis.

What to Say

Keep it short and do not negotiate. Something like: I do not send money to people I have not met. That is not about you. Then stop explaining.

Resist two instincts. The first is to offer an alternative — paying a provider directly, sending a smaller amount, buying the ticket yourself. A genuine friend would accept it; a script will produce a reason why only a transfer to that specific account will work, which is itself the answer to your question. The second is to confront them with your suspicions. There is very little to gain: it warns them, it tends to produce a fresh and convincing explanation, and evidence can disappear afterwards.

If the request came with pressure, you do not need to reply at all. Stop responding, keep what you have, and report the account.

If You Have Already Sent Money

Speed is the only thing that reliably helps, so start now and read the rest afterwards.

Contact your bank or payment provider immediately. Some payments can be stopped or recalled in the first hours and almost none later. Tell them plainly that you believe you have been defrauded.
Stop every further payment, including anything already promised. The sunk cost is the lever that is about to be used on you.
Keep all the evidence. Messages, screenshots, receipts, transaction references, account names, wallet addresses.
Change any password you may have exposed, and turn on two-factor authentication where you can.
Report the account to the platform so it can be removed before it reaches someone else. Our report a profile or safety concern page explains what happens next.
Report the fraud to the authority where you live. Which body that is depends on the country, so check locally rather than assuming; Europol maintains a directory of national cybercrime reporting routes (Europol, Report cybercrime online, consulted 16 October 2026).
Expect a follow-up approach. People who have paid once are contacted again, sometimes by someone claiming to be able to recover the money for a fee. That is a second fraud aimed at the same person. Recovery services that ask for payment up front should be treated as part of the problem.

And one thing that is not a step but matters more than most of them: this was done to you, by professionals, using a method refined on thousands of people. The FTC makes the same point about payment methods chosen specifically because they are hard to trace or reverse (FTC, What To Know About Romance Scams, consulted 16 October 2026). Feeling foolish is the most common reason people do not report, and not reporting is what keeps the account running.

If They Threaten You

If someone threatens to share intimate images or private messages unless you pay: do not pay. Paying does not end it and generally produces further demands. Keep the evidence, block the account, report it to the platform, and contact your local police or the relevant national authority. This is a crime and it is treated as one. Tell someone you trust, and look for a support organisation in your country — several run confidential helplines for exactly this.

What If They Are Genuine?

It is a fair question and it deserves a straight answer rather than reassurance.

Occasionally someone in real difficulty does ask someone they met online for help. The rule still holds, for a reason that has nothing to do with suspicion: a person you have never met is not someone you can help responsibly at a distance, and a genuine emergency abroad has other routes — family, an employer, an insurer, a consulate, a bank. If none of those are available and you are the only option, that is itself unusual enough to be the thing you examine.

You can care about someone and still not send money. Those are not in conflict, and anyone who tells you they are has answered your question.

Frequently Asked Questions

Someone I met online asked for money. Is it always a scam?

Not always, but it is common enough and costly enough that the rule should be absolute: do not send money to anyone you have not met in person, regardless of the reason or the amount. You can hold that line without deciding whether the person is dishonest.

What if it is only a small amount?

The first request is usually small by design. Agreeing establishes that you send money when asked, and the next request will be larger. The size of the amount is not the point; the precedent is.

I have already sent money. What do I do first?

Contact your bank or payment provider immediately and say you believe you have been defrauded — early action is the only thing that sometimes recovers funds. Then stop all further payments, keep every message and receipt, report the account to the platform, and report the fraud to the authority responsible where you live.

Should I tell them I think they are scamming me?

There is little to gain. It warns them, usually produces a convincing new explanation, and can mean the account and the evidence disappear. Stop responding, keep what you have, and report instead.

They asked me to receive money and pass it on. Is that risky?

Yes, and beyond losing money. Moving funds for someone else can make you a money mule, which is a criminal offence in many countries even if you did not know the money was stolen. Do not accept funds on anyone else's behalf and do not forward them.

Can someone recover the money for me?

Your bank or payment provider is the real route, and speed matters. Be very cautious of anyone who contacts you offering recovery for an up-front fee: approaching people who have already been defrauded is itself a known second fraud.