This is how most of these romance scams start
You receive a text on your phone that says something like “Hi Annie, can we meet at Starbucks today?”
You reply, I’m sorry but you have the wrong number
“She” replies, oh sorry I must have saved the number wrong. I hope I didn’t disturb you.
You reply, no worries, it happens.
“She” She replies thank you for being so understanding, may I ask who I am speaking with?
You reply, I’m Larry.
“She” replies, hi I’m Elaine nice to meet you. You seem like a gentleman. May I ask where you live? I live in Los Angeles
You reply, I live in New Jersey.
“She” replies, maybe we can be friends. I’m 38 and I’m a wedding dress designer. What do you do? Maybe you can send a picture of yourself so I know who I’m talking to.
You send a picture of yourself and get hers in return. 90% of the time it’s a picture of a beautiful Asian woman. So you run it through a facial recognition app like pimeyes and tons of pictures come through, dating apps, porn sites, from Instagram etc.
Next up she says this is my business phone. I chat with family and friends on WhatsApp. Can we meet over there?
You say okay and now she’s on a mission to groom you; flatters you and after awhile she explains that she has an uncle who has helped her make a lot money trading cryptocurrencies. She wants to let you in on it. Her story is like all the other scammers; divorced because her husband cheated on her and abused her; moved from China to LA, etc.. starts telling you she is attracted to you. Then she asks to download an app like Crypto.com Onchain, or another decentralized app and then gives you a url to access an exchange which 100% of the time is fake. You run the url through scam advisor and sure enough, the url is a new site and fraudulent.
Then you confront her and she gets all defensive and starts lying and gaslighting you. Before you know it she disappears from WhatsApp.
I’ve played with these scammers for a few years and turn all the info I have over to various US authorities. They follow a script and it’s always some Chinese, Eastern European or Nigerian dude.