Man, 63, Claims Romance Scammers Have Used His Photos to Attract Victims for 15 Years: 'It's So Awful, Tragic and Mean' By Charna Flam

A 63-year-old California man said he has been the victim of romance scams for 15 years.

Scott Cole claimed that since around 2010, his photos and likeness have been used for multiple fraudulent social media accounts to form romantic relationships with women around the world, according to ABC News. He is one of thousands of Americans who have become victims of online romance scams.

“These people are being scammed by my image and likeness and being asked for money,” Cole told ABC News. “It’s so awful, tragic and mean.”

The Palm Springs, Calif., fitness trainer said his career has “been all about helping people,” but now his likeness is “used to do something really awful.”

He claimed that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn profiles will either list his real name or fake names with his real photos. Sometimes he searches his name on Google, Facebook and Instagram to “find all the fakes,” he added.

“I’ll do this when I’m trying to go to sleep and my stomach will just get in knots. I’ll start to get angry and I start to feel like, ‘Why does this happen?’ ” he said. 

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Jennifer Liese, a woman in Kassel, Germany, shared that she was one of the victims who believed she was in a relationship with a man using Cole’s pictures. Beginning in March, she began dating an American man who claimed to be Kevin Ottomar and connected with her on LinkedIn.

Liese said she was “skeptical in the beginning,” adding that “his profile was very, very large. He had a great amount of contacts.”

After months of communication, Liese alleged that Ottomar asked her for money to assist with an equipment mishap at his construction job. 

But she caught onto the con, saying, “I was more and more convinced that, yeah, this is a scam.” As a result, she did an image reverse search and discovered that Ottomar was actually Cole. 

“I was of course disappointed that I have been betrayed,” she said. “Luckily I didn’t suffer any financial loss.” The LinkedIn account was removed. 

She reached out to Cole, but she wasn’t the only person who had contacted him.

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Cole told ABC News that throughout the past 15 years, he’s had “hundreds of women text or email” him from around the world, telling him they were almost victims of losing thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. “My natural response is to help them, but at some point it becomes so big that I can’t even do anything about it,” he said.

He also revealed that some of the women are convinced they know Cole and try to pursue a romantic relationship with him. 

Cole has filed two FBI reports, but has not received a response. “I think one reason they may not have responded is that this is so rampant, not just with my photos but with other people too,” he said. “I’d love for technology to catch up and help stop this from going on.”

PEOPLE reached out to Cole and the FBI for comment. 

TikTok has pulled the fake accounts pretending to be Cole, the social media platform said in a statement to ABC News.

“Those accounts have been taken down and the creators have been removed from TikTok,” a spokesperson said. “When we become aware of this type of violative content, we take it down. In fact, we proactively take down approximately 94% of videos we identify as violating our frauds and scams policies before they are reported.”

Seventy-three percent of adults in the U.S. have experienced some sort of scam online, Pew Research reported in July. A record $16.6 billion in losses was reported by the FBI in 2024 alone.

The FBI offers social media users tips to avoid becoming a victim of romance scams, such as being careful about what they post online, specifically on dating websites, researching the person’s photo and profile, asking questions, and not sending money to someone they’ve only spoken with online or on the phone.