Alarming Figures About Dating App Scams
According to the Federal Trade Commission, people in the US have lost $1.3 billion in online dating scams in the last five years alone. California is the most hit with romance scams, with 9133 cases yearly. It is a global phenomenon where criminals use the same techniques in other countries. They create fake profiles on dating and social media platforms to approach people, honeytrap them, and swindle money.
Around 452 million people are estimated to be using internet platforms to find love. As a result, romance fraud will shoot up with the growing number of people seeking love through online dating channels. With this, fraudsters will become more active and use clever schemes to approach people and scam them. Therefore, learning how to spot and avoid dating scams is crucial.
How To Spot An Online Dating Scam?
If you are also using a dating app, social media platforms, or any other online channel to find your special one, then beware of online dating scams. Criminals may be awaiting you, laying ambush in the dark, taking fake identities and personas on online sites and dating apps. You must be careful and keep your eyes open to avoid scams and frauds in the quest to find true love. You have to learn tips and tricks to identify dating scams and avoid unwanted situations along the way. This write-up offers you the best tips to spot and avoid dating scams and avoid unfortunate situations. Here are some signs to spot online dating scams:
Fake Online Profiles
Scammers use fake photos and pictures on their social media accounts and online platforms. They use celebrity pictures, some models, or an attractive person on their DP to catfish their target. They do so to hide their real identity while approaching their target.
Hasty Professing of Love
If someone is approaching you through social media or dating apps and professing deep love quickly, then you have to be careful with such a person. The person using hasty moves and declaring love for you can be a scammer. It is a useful strategy to convince you and try to win your confidence hastily. In this situation, you should have patience and wait until the truth becomes clear to you.
Quickly Moving To Personal Chat
If you are talking to a scammer on a love app or hookup app, they will insist you move on to personal chat, share a phone number, or use another messaging app. They do so to remove you from the matchmaking apps’ protected environment and security protocols.
Asking Too Many Personal Questions
Relationship fraudsters will ask you too many questions about your job details, financial situation, home address, financial conditions, and family members in order to learn more and more about you.
Avoid Face-to-Face Meetings
Fraudsters never meet you in person whenever you ask them for it. They always have something urgent at hand that they have to attend to. Due to these urgencies, you never have the chance to meet them in person.
Sob Stories
Fraudsters will narrate sob stories to blackmail the victim to evoke sympathy and pity emotionally. These stories express hardships, misfortunes, pain, loneliness, and struggles. The aim behind these stories is to deceive and manipulate the target. This storytelling aims to gain financial assistance from the victim.
Ask For Favor
Fraudsters use convincing language to win the trust of their target, and once they are successful in doing so, they ask for favors. They will ask for financial help to sort out an urgent matter or hospital bill or book a return flight from a place where they are stuck for some reason.
Inconsistencies in Stories
The stories cybercriminals narrate about their unfortunate past and present conditions do not match their backgrounds or job details. There will be inconsistencies and contrary elements in everything they ask for and what they do. Remember, not all people tell lies about their lives, but criminals make up fake stories to generate sympathy in their victims. So, you have to be careful while talking to a stranger on matchmaking apps.
Theft and Financial Gain
The purpose of online dating scams is theft and financial gain. This fake online dating goes on as long as you give them what they ask for. They will siphon as much money as possible, and once you stop cooperating with them, you will get no response.
This is a common pattern that online romance frauds follow. When you identify a combination of these signs while chatting with someone online, remember that it is a red flag for you. Immediately stop talking to them and block them permanently. Most importantly, never comply with their demand for financial favours or any other help that costs you money. Monetary gain is their final purpose, and you should refrain from complying.
How To Avoid Online Dating Scams?
After discussing the tips to spot a dating scam, you must learn the best practices to avoid online scams. Here are some of the most important points that provide the best tips to avoid online dating scams.
Don`t Accept Unknown Friend Requests
Fraudsters create fake social media accounts to approach their target. They use too-good-to-be-real profiles on popular social media apps to start friendships with a person. After that, they follow a preplanned and measured strategy to trap their target. So, the best thing you should do in this situation is to reject their friendship proposal. Just don’t accept their friend request; add them to your friend list.
Don't Share Personal Information
Swindlers on matchmaking apps will ask you about personal information such as full name, house address, job details, workplace, and specific locations. They use this data to exploit you, access your accounts, create fake accounts in your name, and manipulate you by invoking shared interests. It is highly recommended that you avoid sharing personal information with strangers as much as possible. It will keep your privacy intact and protect your online security. Nobody would be able to approach you and exploit you in any way.
Use Certified Online Dating Apps
There are hundreds of online matchmaking apps and sites available on the internet. Do not just choose randomly from any of them to find a perfect match. But only a few of them are reliable and secure. Cybercriminals use these bogus apps to lure people and entrap them in honey traps. You must use certified online dating apps to find your perfect match. Reputable and reliable relationship sites offer robust security measures to detect and prevent scamming. Certified platforms offer a firewall against romance scams, providing complete privacy and safety protocols.
Move Slowly Take Your Time
When you are finding love through relationship apps, make sure you move slowly and take your time. Scammers will rush quickly to start relationships and build strong trust quickly. You have to be patient in this situation and keep up your defences. Do not give any personal information all at once to the stranger you are virtually interacting with. Instead of this, you must ask detailed questions, know their stories, and find inconsistencies in the answers. If you find anything suspicious, then stop talking to them. Ending a conversation with them will save you from getting more information or influence over you.
Keep Your Eyes Open
If you are the one taking the initiative to approach someone on the relationship site, then don’t think it is a safe step. Romance scammers are everywhere, and they wait for people to come to them and fall into their honeytrap. They set traps, creating fake accounts and dating profiles with fake names, photos, videos, addresses, and professions. Therefore, you are highly recommended to keep your eyes, watch your steps, and play it safe. Choose the safer or more cautious option available to avoid risks.
Cross-Check And Verify
You should cross-check the details about your potential date on the Internet before taking any further steps. Go to different social media apps and look for the person’s name, photo, email, and address. Check their friendliest, profile information, education, and professional details. Find out who the followers are and who likes and comments on the photos and stories. It will help you authenticate the real identity of the person you are interacting with on the internet. With this, you will be able to proceed with caution and be careful with your actions.
Don`t Share Explicit Pictures
Never share any sensitive and compromising pictures, videos, or any other form of content with strangers. It will lower your defences and provide the chance for the criminal to blackmail you and extort money from you. The scammer will threaten you to release or upload the material on the internet and share it with your near and dear ones. Hence, refrain from giving any leverage or advantage to your enemy to capitalize on.
Don`t Share Explicit Pictures
Never share any sensitive and compromising pictures, videos, or any other form of content with strangers. It will lower your defences and provide the chance for the criminal to blackmail you and extort money from you. The scammer will threaten you to release or upload the material on the internet and share it with your near and dear ones. Hence, don’t give any leverage or advantage to your enemy to capitalize on.
Avoid Suspicious Links
Sweet swindlers attach phishing links in their bios, messages, and conversations. These links can take you to malicious sites or download deadly malware on your system. Once your device gets virus-infected, cybercriminals can leverage it to access your device, steal sensitive details, and commit financial fraud on you. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you avoid suspicious links on dating sites. Before clicking the links, make sure to verify their legitimacy and the destination where they are taken.
Try to Fix a Public Meeting
A real person will always want to meet you to confirm your real identity, build healthy relationships, and understand each other. You should fix a public meeting with your potential date to develop a mutual understanding and learn more about the person. At the same time, if you do so, choose a familiar and convenient place close to your home. Also, share the information with your family members or friends so that some will always know about your actions. If any mishap occurs, there will be someone for you to call for help and protection from danger.
Never Make Financial Favors
The primary purpose of sweet swindlers on online dating apps is to extort money from people. They will ask you for financial assistance, gift cards, pay the bills, or cover them until they get their salary from their office. These are common strategies romance scammers use to thug people. You have to avoid doing financial favors to the stranger you are in contact with over any social media site or relationship app. People with good intentions and pure love will never ask you for financial favors, especially since you are so early in the relationship. They are there to extort money from you.
How to Respond to An Online Dating Scam?
If you, by chance, fall victim to an online dating scam, then here are some effective steps you should take to minimize its negative effects. They are as follows:
Stop all Communications
As soon as you find out that you are talking to a fake person, cut off all communications. To do so, you should use the blocking features of the dating site you are using to talk to the scammer. If you share any personal contact details, do not respond to messages and calls from the enemy. Block them immediately so that they cannot reach you using any gateways.
Report the Incident
Report the profile of the scammer as a fraud or scam using the very site you met them. Your response will help the platform block the profile from their database and stop them from ensnaring other persons using the same user account. You can report the incident to the law enforcement authorities in case you lose any money or valuable things during your communications.
Protect Your Personal Information
Change your passwords to protect your crucial accounts from scammers, and monitor your financial accounts for unauthorized transactions and payments. If you have exchanged any important information with the fraudster, then safeguard it using the best options available to you. Protecting personal information is highly important to minimize the damage and protect your hard-earned money and public reputation.
Seek Support
Connect to online forums, legal organizations, and cybercrime investigation agencies to report the events and seek support. You should share your experience with near and dear ones to get help and guidance to avoid further damage. With this, you may be able to recover the loss inflicted on you by the criminals.
Consider Recovering Financial Losses
You should contact your bank, credit card agency, or the involved financial institutes to recover the financial losses and the illegal payments that befall you during the whole process. Provide the details of the incident and account details to which you transferred money or paid any amount. The financial institute can help you reverse the amount in your account or find a real person.
Educate Yourself and Stay Alert
It is highly important that you stay informed about the latest scams and frauds happening on the internet. You should educate yourself and avoid using unsafe sites to find your true love. You have to stay alert even when you are using a certified relationship app, as scammers are everywhere, and they will use different channels to contact you and befriend you. Don’t optimize your dating account completely, as criminals can steal all the important information from it and use it to exploit you.
Tips To Safely Find Love On Online Dating Apps?
Online dating apps and sites can be a good way to find your true love, your special one that really matches your vibes. But you must take some precautions to find love on relationship sites and enjoy good times safely.
Here are some tips that help you find good connections securely:
- Use reputable and authentic sites and apps with positive user experiences and reviews.
- Read the privacy policy of the site and make sure it protects your personal data.
- Don't share all the details on your dating profile, e.g. full name, address, contact no, etc.
- Use a dating app to communicate and chat, and don't move too fast to personal contact.
- Upload unique and current photos on your dating account to avoid any danger.
- Watch Out for unclear, too good-to-be-true, and inconsistent profiles and attached information.
- Before meeting the person in public, make a lot of video calls to develop a good understanding.
- Choose safe locations near your residence to fix your first public meetings.
- Keep your friend and a family member informed about your seeing someone.
- Follow your instincts if you are feeling like you are not ready for any real-life meeting.
- If you feel uncomfortable or uneasy, then cut off the conversation and part your ways.
- Don't give any money, send gifts, or do any financial favours to the stranger you are chatting with.
- Use a secure connection to use matchmaking apps, and never use public WiFi connections.
- Use multi-factor authentication services to protect and authenticate your accounts.
- If you come across any suspicious activity, report it and block the person immediately.
