Today, dating sites are hugely popular. After all, everyone can chat with interesting people, find love, and make friends without even leaving home. But not everything in the garden is rosy. There are some traps and pitfalls you should know about. More and more people fall for the ingenious tricks of dating scammers and find only disappointment and heartsore instead of true love. And so, let’s find out what types of fraud exist and learn how to avoid online dating scam.
Short term scam
This is one of the easiest and most popular ways of online dating scam. A scammer chooses a dating site and creates several almost identical accounts in order to attract more victims. In the fake account of such a scammer, you can see a bright sexual photo of a girl or a guy, and a brief simple profile description. Moreover, he can duplicate general information in all the questionnaires. The main goal of such a scammer is to send a large number of spam messages with the text of his e-mail, Skype address, or phone number. All other fraudulent operations of getting money out of the lonely users will be carried out there. This scheme works until the moment when the website administration deletes this account due to users’ complaints.
Moreover, short term scam can be carried out by a group of people. They often make rather gross mistakes, so only completely inattentive people can believe their tales. For example, there is one photo and name in the account of a girl, and she sends you an email with a completely different photo and another name. Scammers make such mistakes only because they “process” by many people at the same time. Some of them fall for the tricks and send money, while others not. They are quantity-oriented!
Long-term scam
In this case, a scammer plans to stay on a dating site for a long period, so he takes the design of his profile page very seriously. He writes a lot of information about himself and describes the qualities he wants to see in a potential partner. The scammer creates the most realistic profile page and tries not to attract attention as long as possible. His task is to catch a “big fish”, perhaps even a few of them, and gradually transfer the communication to other social networks.
Long-term scammers are more serious and, in most cases, work independently. They are good psychologists who know how to write sentimental messages and make a good impression. Scammers carefully study the users of a dating site in search of the most suitable victim, then carry out the initial “processing” of the chosen person (ie, test communication), and within a few days, they ask the victim to go directly to the e-mail or another website.
How to verify the identity of a person on a dating site?
Scammers do everything possible to hide their true intentions and deceive the victim. But still, it is possible to distinguish them from people who want to build a happy family and romantic relationships. There are 5 effective tips on how to verify the identity of a person on a dating site.
- To find out what kind of person you are chatting with, ask him about everything. The more questions you ask, the sooner you find out the true intentions of the new acquaintance. Pay attention to how accurately and frankly he answers you. If your questions go unnoticed, it is better to stop the communication.
- Ask for the exact postal address and telephone number. If he does not want a serious relationship, you will not get this data. If the interlocutor gave you this information, tell him that soon, you are going to come to his city on business and want to meet him. You understand what will be the reaction of the scammer – he will disappear from your life forever.
- Do you like the photos a handsome man on a dating site? But they can be of another person! To check this, ask the man to send a photo near his home, work, with children, parents, or friends. At the same time, you will have the opportunity to learn about the life and interests of the potential partner. If he does not have the desired photos, then this is a reason to think.
- Ask the interlocutor to communicate via video chat. Every second victim of a dating scammer has never seen his face. Such men often write in the chat and call but always avoid video communication. The reason may be believable: his webcam is broken, a secret job where video broadcasting is prohibited, and so on.
- Moreover, you should familiarize yourself with the blacklists of dating scammers and check if your new virtual friend is among them. Nowadays, there are many Internet services that provide such information in order to protect users. For example, Jump4lovescam scam protection is one of the most powerful, so you can learn all the information about online dating safely and easily.
