Military romance scams are a common type of Internet romance scam, and they can be initiated on Facebook, through email or through online dating or chat websites.
Romance scams are one of the oldest types of Internet cons, initially restricted to email in the early days of the Internet but later exploiting the increasing popularity of social media sites like Facebook and online dating forums and sites. Their success rate is low, but that’s because they don’t need to be that high. Scammers only need to hook in one victim to get a potential payout of thousands of dollars.
In its most basic terms, a scammer poses as a potential love interest on the Internet, initiating contact with a victim and gaining their confidence. Communication is typically strictly limited to online, and over time the scammer gains the confidence of the victim, often declaring their love for them.
From there the scam can take on several different formats, but will usually involve the scammer tricking the victim into handing over money.
In a military romance scam, the scammer poses as a member of the military. In most scams we come across, this is usually either the US or British military, but other past cases have included French, German or Australian military.
The scammer uses a photo of a soldier they find on the Internet as their own, and they tell the victim they are currently serving overseas – often in recognised war zones like Afghanistan or Iraq.
This provides an effective excuse as to why the scammer cannot meet the victim in person and often provides a good way of extracting money from the victim.
For the most part, military romance scams can be differentiated by how they attempt to extort money from the victim, of which there is no shortage of examples.
The ‘leave’ variant
The scammer informs the victim that they’d like to visit, but they must take leave from their military duties in order to do so. Completing this ‘taking leave’ paperwork costs money, the victim is told.
The scammer fabricates an excuse as to why they cannot pay this fee, and it is up to the victim to bear the cost, usually on the guarantee that they will be refunded when the scammer visits.
Reality check – soldiers do not have to pay to take leave, and they have to complete the paperwork themselves.
The transportation costs variant
Similar to the leave variant above, the scammer posing as a soldier informs the victim that they’d like to visit, but for some reason for another they cannot access their own money to fund their transportation costs, and the victim has to fork over the money for the visit, often under the guarantee that they will be refunded.
The ‘Iraqi Gold’ or ‘Saddam’s Millions’ variant
In this variant – that is actually advance fee fraud – the scammer asserts they have come across a huge wealth of valuables, be it gold or cash, when serving abroad. They inform the victim that they need to get it out of the country where they will split the profits. But they need the victim’s help, which inevitably means they need the victim’s money.
The range of specific reasons the scammer gives to the victim as to exactly why they need money is almost endless, but the universal truth is that this is just a scam.
‘Keep in touch’ variant
The scammer will claim that they are moving to an area where they will not be able to keep in contact with the victim, and the only way to keep in contact is if the victim purchases communication equipment – usually a satellite phone – on their behalf.
The victim is either asked to wire money to the scammer or forwarded to a website that appears to sell such equipment but is actually operated by the scammer.
Reality check – Most military’s across the world ensure that their personnel have the ability to communicate with loved ones back home. Of course this may not be possible all of the time, since there are times where soldiers are expected to – for example – embark on missions where communication would be rendered impossible, with or without equipment purchased by the victim.
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It could just be as simple as to never, ever send money over the Internet to individuals you’ve never met, if you’d like to take that approach – an approach we generally recommend, since that also helps protect you from a number of other scams as well.
But if you’d like to dig a little deeper, then these are some other tips
– Their photo has probably been taken elsewhere on the Internet. If they don’t have a photo, or haven’t given you one, ask for one. They will probably comply, since it isn’t difficult to take a photo from the Internet and claim it is you. Once you have the photo, perform a Google reverse image search (Google it!) to see if the photo has been used elsewhere on the Internet with a different name. If so, then it’s a scam!
– MoneyGram and Western Union are the two big no-no’s. These services are exploited by scammers because it is hard to trace payments made through them. If someone you meet online asks to you use them, run away! It’s a scam. The same applies to mailing cash as well.
– Understand that soldiers in most militaries across the globe are pretty well looked after, and it’s unlikely that they’d be unable to afford things like getting home or keeping in touch with loved ones. So if they’re playing the “too poor” card, this should be ringing the alarm bells.
– Have the “soldier” declared their love for you quite quickly? Scammers are professionals when it comes to pulling at those heartstrings, and emotional exploitation is an effective weapon when it comes to manipulating their victims.
– And don’t send money. Really, just don’t. We seriously doubt in the history of the Internet has there been one legitimate request for money from a soldier to a civilian they just met randomly on the Internet.
