We all know that online dating is on the rise. With our busy schedules and the lack of socialising during this pandemic, digital dating has seen quite an increase.
While there are a number of real people looking for a partner, any dating side has a fair proportion of professional scammers, that is false profiles that are posing as real people with the only purpose of bonding with you to eventually ask you for money.
Clues of false profiles
Don’t give for granted that scammers are easy to spot, they have possibly been doing this for a very long time and know how to play the game very well. Some can be lazy and too fast and blunt, but others can groom you for weeks and months before moving forward, or doing it in small increments so you get used to it and find it acceptable.
Some clues to spot them are:
- Their profiles are “a little bit too good”. Their photos (possibly stolen from someones social media) are just too perfect. (does it look too good to be true?) New photos -if they come- seem to be out of time and context, with no relation to the ongoing conversation.
- Their interest grows quite quick towards you. They normally start by saying they want something serious from the very beggining, that they are not up for games. Declarations of you being special, unique and love are fairly swift
- They will try to lure you away from the dating site quite quickly, with the excuse that they hardly visit it and are never there.
- They usually tell you they have an odd job or location, like the military, an oil rig, working overseas, … that will justify the odd conexion times, and/or the silence periods.
- The profile can be poor or inconsistent. Scammers have to boot new profiles continuosly as they prey for new victims, and don’t invest the same time in setting one up and describing themselves as a person who has a real interest. They focus more on the photo cacth than on their description. Do you feel a real personal dimension to the profile? Does their writting contain obvious spelling mistakes, or a grammar level that doesnt match the profile?
And of course the key move, once they have gained your trust (beware, it can be months down the line) will be the revelation of a problem that needs your money to solve it. The surgery of a close relative, a car breakdown, an urgent bill, … something that makes you feel guilty not to help, and happy to prove your love by doing so. It may cleverly be put as a part payment of something that they could pay, but has just increased, so they are not asking for the total sum of the (fictitial) expense, just the extra help.
You are by now possibly so emotionally involved that it feels mean not to offer your help and assistance. Be assured it will never be a one off, it will be incremental and continuous, until you realize it was a money scam all along.
How to keep safe from this scam
Hold your eagerness aside for a moment and read the profile critically. Does it make real sense?. Is the description coherent, and what would make you so atractive so suddenly to a person with that profile?
Do any of the above boxes tick? are you suddenly asked to leave the website app, or to pay for a special service to “protect” their privacy?. Do they seem to arrive and dissapear at odd times, with some work excuse? Google up a similar excuse to see if that behaviour is a common scam excuse over the internet, you may find its a pattern.
State from the very beggining while you are still not emotionally attached, quite assertivly and even unpolitely, that you will NEVER pay them any cost, or send them any money even if that happens later in time. Tell them you have been “stung” before (even if you haven’t) and that you will never fall again for this mistake. A professional scammer will identify you as a burnt target and soon dissapear.
Don’t ever exchange or offer intimate photos of yourself that could be used to blackmail you in future. Also take special care with photos of your children, and private details like the numberplate of your car or your street name in the background.
You got scammed anyway
It’s possible that even with this advice, you got so emotionally tied up that you fell for it thinking this could never be your case. What now?
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Scammers can be very good at decieving, and they prey on good people who want to reach out. The fact that you were tricked is because you were a good person.
Cut your losses and ensure that there is no means for the scammer to use your data, information or recieve any future payments of any kind. It will be nearly impossible to get any money back if you voluntarily gifted it.
Report the profile to the web. It possibly won’t stop the scammer for long, but it keeps the web administrators on their toes, and aware of the false activity going on their websites to implement measures.
If the quantity of money scammed was significant report it to the police. It helps them too implement more measures and get a grasp at the scale at wich it is happening. It may also eventually help towards laws demanding higher responsability from the dating websites.
Some helpful links:
Police Fraud Phone: 0300 123 2040
Police Fraud Website: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/
Victim support : https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/
Report scammers annonimously : https://scamalytics.com/report-scammers/?r=ssx1