Online dating scams are on the rise. They will prey on lonely, vulnerable people and in many cases they can be absolutely devastating for their victims.
These scams will target people, typically on dating websites but also on social media as well. The scammer contacts their target by pretending to be someone they are not. They gain the trust of their victim and can communicate with them for weeks or months – almost always entirely online – before attempting extort money from them, usually by lying to the target to gain their sympathy.
Here are 5 ways you can detect if you are the target of an online dating scam.
The scammer is lying about who they are, and will probably provide fake photos and a fake name to the target, as well as fake information about them including where they live. For this reason, meeting in person is never an option for the scammer so they will usually make excuses as to why a real life meeting cannot take place. They are willing to communicate via text, chatroom, email or social media, but never face to face, and rarely over the phone.
Commonly the scammer uses the “overseas working” excuse, claiming that their work takes them abroad so often that they cannot arrange a meeting. Or the scammer may claim they live in a different country and for the interim an online relationship would only be possible.
Whatever the excuse, the scammer will not commit (or carry out) a meeting in person.
Additionally it is worth noting that many scammers may seem keen to remove communications from the confines of a dating website, since such sites may be able to pick up on such scams and shut them down. Thus the scammer would prefer contact through the Internet that bypasses the communication tools offered by the dating website.
Since the photos they use are most likely stolen, you can perform a reverse image search to see if their photos have been used in other contexts. The reverse image search searches for other instances of the photo as they have appeared online.
If you find their photos attached to people with different names or details, this is a sure fire way to detect an online dating scam.
Google’s image search (images.google.com) is perhaps the best reverse image search on the Internet. Simply save a photo to your computer and upload it to their website via that web address to perform a search.
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The scammers aim is to gain the trust of the victim as fast as possible. While a scammer may be willing to hang around for months or even years to carry out their scams, they’d prefer it to take a short as time as possible so they can scam the victim quickly and move on to the next.
Preferably (for the scammer) they can gain the trust of their victim in only a few weeks and months, meaning they will likely ‘come on’ strong, quickly using excessive flattery, pet names and even declaring their love early on. They may tell their target that they are “the one”, seek affinity whenever and wherever possible as well as assert that they have lots in common with their target.
This is because they want their victim – who may be desperate, lonely and vulnerable – to feel the same way too, quickly, in order to establish trust.
Scammers will usually be trying to scam several people at any one time, usually via different scams. Possibly more romance scams, or even other types of advance fee fraud.
This means that they may slip up and say things that were inconsistent with their previous communications. They may say they are places that are not near where they are supposed to be, or they may slip up and send you something you were not meant to receive.
Alternatively, grammar can be a big giveaway. Most scammers that commit these types of crimes originate from non-English speaking countries, meaning grammar and spelling may be poor.
The end game with these scams is – of course – financial gain. The scammer essentially wants to trick the victim into parting with money, so they will eventually ask the victim to send them money.
The reasons the scammer gives can vary depending on which scammer it is and which scam they are using. Often it can be for travel costs to meet the victim. Others claim it is to break their work contract so they leave their overseas job and “come home”. Others will play the sympathy card and claim they have become ill and need money for healthcare.
They will usually request the money be sent through a money wire service like MoneyGram or Western Union, which can be difficult to trace.
Whatever the reason, you should never send money to people you only know from the Internet, no matter how convincing they sound.