It's a peak season for online dating, with the number of users usually swelling between New Year's Day and Valentine's Day. Yet in the quest for love, online daters may find fraud instead.
One in five Americans between 25 and 34 years of age have used online dating sites, according to Pew Research. As Internet romance has become more accepted in society — and grown into a more than $2 billion market — fraudsters have found ways to monetize the search for a partner, with organized crime rings around the globe now getting in on the action.