Nowadays, people live hectic lives and don’t have enough time to find a partner for a romantic relationship. Many people find themselves busy with their career and don’t have the time or energy for socialization and meeting new people. That’s where dating sites step in with their advanced algorithms. Dating apps allow you to meet new people with a few taps on your smartphone.
Due to their popularity, these types of sites are a target for online romance scams. Therefore, many hesitate to try online dating because of swindlers. Their fear of being scammed is valid, but there are ways to overcome online dating scams. Awareness of the most common online dating scams is essential in preventing them.
If you want to start a safe online dating journey, this post is for you. We explain the most common dating app scams and share tips on how to avoid them. After reading this post, you will feel safer in the online dating space, and hopefully, you’ll know how to identify this type of crime.
How to Recognize Online Dating Scams
Most romance scam artists follow a similar pattern. Dating sites don’t put effort into verifying users, so they create fake profiles with stolen photos to appear more attractive and grab attention. A scammer will contact you quickly after matching and won’t hesitate to take communication forward. Furthermore, scammers often express romantic feelings early to lure the victim.
Another typical behavior for scammers is trying to contact you outside the dating platform immediately. If a suspicious dating profile insists on communicating on Telegram or Snapchat, they are likely a scammer.
The person will then create an elaborate story and ask you to send money or gift cards. Or they might ask you to join a website or purchase services. At the same time, they will postpone seeing you and come up with various excuses.
Military Romance Scam
Military romance scams are so common that the US army has released a complete guide on how to avoid them. The scammer puts a lot of effort into making their profiles appear realistic and creating a fake identity.
They build an emotional connection with the victim by sweet-talking and sharing personal details. The standard pattern for such scams is that they eventually get deployed. They continue the communication but ask for money. At this stage, the victim believes the story is real and it might take them a long time to discover that they have been scammed.
Sextortion Scam
Scammers can fool the victim into participating in intimate acts through video or sharing intimate photos, only to threaten them afterward with making the material public. They will start creating an emotional relationship and require a video chat.
The scammer persuades the victim to engage in intimate activities but finds excuses to turn on their camera. They will record the activity and blackmail the victim, demanding money so they won’t share the video online.
Identity Theft Romance Scam
Fake dating sites will ask you to fill in sensitive details to create a profile. They can ask you to fill in financial information or answers to the most common security questions, such as the name of your first teacher.
However, stealing sensitive information can happen on legit dating sites too. The victim receives a message from a user claiming they want to verify them. Online romance scammers ask the victim to fill out a questionnaire for this purpose, which requires the entry of personal data. Such behavior is most certainly a fraud since dating sites don’t perform this type of verification check.
Long-distance Romance Scam
Being long-distance is an excellent excuse for scammers to avoid going on a date with you. Some will step forward and ask you to send them money for their flight to your state. Or they can ask you for access to your financial information and credit card details.
Scammers will express their attachment too soon and ask you to send money or gift cards to express your love. Either way, these are clear signs of a scam.
Cryptocurrency Romance Scam
The crypto dating scams start with building a profound online relationship before the swindler expresses crypto investments as their interest. The mutual discussion leads to the scammer representing themselves as experienced in this niche.
They convince the victim to create an account on a specific site and add money, claiming they will earn a lot. When the time for withdrawal comes, the site will shut down, or they will be requested to pay taxes or interest.
Phishing
The phishing scams on online dating sites are similar to email phishing. The user can send you a link to their photo, but when you open it, your device gets infected with malware. Or they will provide a link to their social media profiles. The link directs you to a website that looks the same as social media sites but steals your credentials when you try to sign in.
Phishing sites will look identical to the real ones but will have a typo in the URL address. OR they provide a shortened link to conceal the original URL.
How to Avoid Dating Site Scams
Checking a person’s online dating profile to see if they really exist is a good starting point. Scammers can put a lot of effort into making their profile look legit, but anyone can do a few simple checks to expose a fake profile.
Dating scammers will usually use fake profile images of very attractive individuals. They will have only a couple of profile photos and avoid video chats. You can also do a reverse image search for the profile pictures to see if they appear elsewhere.
Avoid taking communication out of dating sites to social media channels. Don’t click on links in the profile’s bio or message to avoid identity theft. Never reveal personal details or send money to someone you’ve met online.
Your online date can easily hide things from you, and an online search is not going to help you uncover the truth. Private investigators can do background checks to find out the truth about your date if you decide to move forward with the relationship. This gives you complete insights into criminal records, including professional and financial history. The investigators can provide information regarding your date’s private life, such as past relationships.
Contact our private investigators and they can help reveal your date’s true colors!
