How to spot and avoid an Internet “Romance Scam”
As more and more people turn to the potentially fertile ground of cyberspace in their quest for love, romance scams have become an increasingly prolific online scam with some of the highest damages per victim.
Romance scams alone are responsible for scamming millions of dollars each and ever year, and statistics show that number isn’t getting any lower. In fact, given that many victims may not come forward, this figure could actually be much higher. Romance scams are particularly devastating because they frequently fleece their victims for far more money than other online scams.
While romance scammers frequently target elderly or vulnerable victims, just about anyone can be taken by these crooks, who specialise in manipulation to gain the trust of their victims. Here are some simple tips and tricks to make sure you spot these scams before it’s too late.
How do romance scams work?
While each scam is likely to differ from the next, nearly all of them have one goal. To lure the victim into opening their wallet and parting with their money.
(Read more about the stories romance scammers use to lure victims into handing over money in our post here.)
The crook will contact a victim online – often through social media or through dating websites – and attempt to develop relationship with the victim across the Internet, in order to gain their trust. Once the crook believes they have that trust, they will use a variety of social engineering techniques to trick the victim into sending them money over the Internet.
This is a process that can last between a handful of days to, in some extreme cases, a number of years. Typically these scams operate within the days to weeks timeframe.
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In some cases, the crook will instead attempt to trick a victim into sending over copies of sensitive documents such as passports and driver’s licenses. The crook may do this at the same time as asking the victim for money, or instead of asking them for money. Or the scammer may resort to this if a victim refuses to send money. This is done to either commit identity fraud, or to use those documents illicitly to add authenticity to further romance scams targeting other victims.
Never send money over the Internet to someone you’ve never met
The most important advice that is likely to protect a victim from the majority of romance scams is perhaps also the simplest advice. Do not send money to anyone over the Internet if you’ve never met them in person.
Romance scammers can employ many different stories (called social engineering) to lure a victim into sending them money. We list some below. But remember, this isn’t an exhaustive list, and the reality is that you should never send money to someone you’ve never met.
– The person has lost their money and needs urgent cash to avoid financial hardship.
– The person is in ill-health and needs money to have an operation or recover from an operation.
– The person needs money for travel to meet the victim.
– The person’s business deal went wrong and they need money in order to recover a larger sum of cash.
– The person is in the armed services and needs money to leave and travel to the victim.
– The person is due a large amount of money but cannot receive it until they pay smaller amounts of money.
In most cases, the crook will promise to reimburse the victim. Also, the crook will create a sense of urgency and claim they need the money quickly.
You should also never send out sensitive documents such as copies of your passport or identification to scammers. These can be digitally manipulated and used to add authenticity to other scams, or they can be used to commit identity theft against the victim.
We go into more details about some of the tricks scammers use to trick people into sending money in our article 5 Tricks that romance scammers use to trick you into sending money
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Romance scams “red flags”
So as we say above, never send money to someone you’ve never met online. But the following red flags below may also indicate your blossoming online relationship may in fact be a romance scam.
– The person you’re talking with makes a variety of excuses as to why they cannot meet in person. This is often because, as the crook claims, they live (or are travelling, or away on business) in another country.
– The person you’re talking with seems keen on moving away from the dating website environment and onto social media. This is because social media sites and apps like Facebook and WhatsApp have a lower level of protection against romance fraud.
– The person you’re talking with seems keen on keeping your discussions private. This is because a crook knows a potential victim is more likely to determine they are being scammed if they talk about their conversations with friends and family.
– The person doesn’t appear to speak English through frequent spelling and grammar errors.
– The person may come on strong very quickly, claiming they love you after only a short period of time.
– They ask you to provide compromising videos or photos that could potentially be used to blackmail you in the future.
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Try a reverse image search
If you’re suspicious that someone you’re talking with may be a scammer who will ask you for money (or perhaps they already have) then you can try a reverse image search to see if the photo they are using of themselves really belongs to them, or if it is someone else.
This is easy to do. Just save a photo of the person you’re talking to to your computer. Then go to images.google.com and upload that photo. (Ask someone with technical experience to help with this if necessary.) This will show where else the photo appears on the Internet, and if the photo appears to belong to someone else with a different name, then you’re probably talking to a scammer. Scammers often steal photos of other people instead of showing their real faces.
(Tip: If you’re using Google Chrome on a PC or laptop, instead of doing the above, just right click the photo and select “Search Google for image”.) See below.
A reverse image search with Google Chrome.
Remember these scammers are exceptionally convincing
The idea that someone who meet someone else online and then send them money may seem like an obvious type of scam to avoid, but it’s worth remember that these scammers are extremely convincing and extremely manipulative, and have an arsenal of tried and tested techniques to help them exploit a victim’s trust.
They are also skilled in hunting down people who could be vulnerable to this type of scam. While these scammers success rate may not be high, they only need to convince a single person to send them their life savings which could put the crook in profit for a year or even longer.
Remember, if something feels wrong, then stop and ask advice from someone you know and trust, and if you think something is a risk, don’t do it.