The worst type of criminals is the one who hunts us when we are most vulnerable. When it comes to matters of the heart, even the smartest person can ignore logic and fall into the jaws of scammers.
Online dating scammers rely on our need for communication, love and avoidance of painful loneliness. Everyone deserves to find someone special, but that doesn’t mean you have to be completely uncritical when looking for love online.
We’ll take a look at how online dating scammers work, what the warning signs are, and how to deal with each of them.
How Scammers Are Working Online Dating
There are two main types of online dating scams. The first is motivated by net profit. The idea is to build a relationship with you. Then emotionally force you to part with your values.
The second type of fraud is more insidious, since in most cases there is no monetary gain. This is known as “catfishing” and is a form of Internet trolling. The goal is to humiliate or otherwise harm you emotionally as a cruel joke.
While catfishing generally does not rob you of your money (although it can move in that direction), many signs are still common to both types of online dating scams. Here are some of the more common red flags.
Everything is moving too fast
Things are moving too fast
A fraudster needs to make a profit, which means that he works on time. While you might not be in a rush and just want to enjoy the early stages of getting all the love, the real person behind the fake profile wants dollars and he wants them now.
This means that you will definitely feel some lack of vibrations on the other side of the screen. Your online “date†wants to go from 0 to 60 instantly. So if things get hot and hard at an insincere speed, you should definitely take a step back without pink love glasses.
What to do about it
You need to control the pace of fulfillment of obligations. Ask them detailed questions about their lives. Show real interest. Let them know that you want to get to know them before getting into a serious relationship.
It is not reliable. Some dating scam networks are willing to run for months or years, but most of them work for quick money, and if you slow down, you lose profits.
Nothing adds up
Things don’t add up
Online dating scammers have to create multiple fake online images. Yes, even a crook has to play on the battlefield. They may tell you that there are no other victims, but the truth is, being an online dating scammer is a bit like a chicken on a battery farm. You are stuffed into a box and expected to produce, produce, produce.
The good news is that this means most of these fake online profiles are paper thin. A simple reading of their social media profiles should reveal mismatched details.
What to do about it
Do your research just like you would any other stranger on the web. It is almost impossible for people these days to hide their lives from the web. So don’t just look at the channels your potential online boyfriend used to connect with you.
Do a reverse search of the images by their avatars. See if they are interacting with family members. Do they have a LinkedIn page? Are the details of their lives being summarized? Are they the same in profiles?
They ask for money
They ask for money
The hallmark of an online dating scam is that requests for money will come in pretty quickly after being hooked. Many different techniques can be used here, but the central issue is primarily the request for money.
What to do about it
It can be difficult, but you need to categorically abandon any form of cash settlement. If you’ve already made a payment, it’s not too late to stop. Even if the person is not a scammer, asking for money from someone you know for only a few days or weeks is still predatory and highly inappropriate.
Ask yourself, would you be comfortable giving money to someone you have never met in real life? Even best friends don’t come easily for financial help. More importantly, this is the era of crowdfunding If someone really has an emergency and wants money from strangers, they’d better go to the GoFundMe page.
Poor English or language use in general
It can be painful. Poor English proficiency does not automatically mean you are dealing with a scammer on the Internet. The Internet makes it possible for people of all backgrounds to meet. So it’s entirely possible that the person you are legally going on a romantic trip with is simply not speaking or writing English well.
A real red flag is when there is no reason to expect bad English from the person they pretend to be. If a person claims to speak English, have a higher education, or is a native of an English-speaking country, then this is a serious red flag when his English is of poor quality and of poor quality.
The same principle applies if you communicate in a language other than English, which you are fluent in.
What to do about it
The only thing you can really do is to be alert if the person speaks the language poorly, inconsistently or suspiciously. Discussing the issue with someone who is not a scammer can be very offensive.
However, you can ask questions related to the issue that may clarify the situation. Questions such as “How many languages ??do you speak?” or “Is English your first language? Your writing is interesting. ”
Sob Stories Detail
Another common feature of online dating scams is a carefully crafted story with tears in their eyes. It just so happened that you entered this person’s life when things could go wrong. Their dog is sick, their mom needs cancer treatment, they are going to be evicted, and so on.
Usually these stories are confusing, and the more you ask them questions, the more detail is added to confuse the water even more. All of this is underscored by despair and heartbreaking pleas for help. They really love you, if you love them you will help them.
You can bet there will soon be a request for ever-increasing amounts of money.
What to do about it
Most people with a healthy nonsense detector will smell suspicious when tales of melodramatic tragedy begin to surface. Whether the story is true or not, you don’t have to correct it.
You can sympathize, you can give advice, but never offer money. This is especially frustrating when it comes to quid , but it’s a matter of your own moral compass.
Excuses, excuses, excuses
You can bet that online dating scammers are no stranger to interrogations. Most of their brands smell fishy pretty quickly, so they have a set of excuses to keep you captivated for as long as possible, just to get a few more dollars or (with catfish catching) some more laughs.
Since they are not a real person, whatever you ask that would be trivial for a real person is something that they should avoid. Want to make a video call? They will find a reason why they cannot do it. Want to fly out to meet them to catch their bluff? They will likely disagree unless they already run away from you enough to stop the scam.
As much as possible, the scammer will want to keep you at a distance that they can control. This makes it easy to hold the facade.
What to do about it
Several reasonable excuses are one, but if it turns out that your real-life meeting request or simple Skype call has met an iron curtain of reasons why they can’t happen, then it’s best to put an end to it. Even if it was never a scam.
Relationships need to improve gradually, and someone who loves texts but doesn’t get into the camera is a serious red flag.
Rising Despair
Online dating scammers know people who resist the call for money. This is where they really start doing their thing. They first step through the door with the opening gambit of a sobbing story. Then, when you don’t get cash, things get worse.
In the end, the other person will beg for your help, questioning your self-image as a good person. They won’t shy away from hurting you emotionally for a few dollars. In fact, the more distraught they are with your empathy, the less chance you will have to stop and think.
What to do about it
This can be tricky, especially if the scammer has spent a lot of time preparing you for this moment. The best thing to do is take time and distance between yourself and this, please.
Go for a walk, take a deep breath, and see what is being said, regardless of strong emotion. Time pressure and heightened emotions are tools manipulators use to force you to make decisions without thinking.
Forcing you to a different service
One of the common tactics used by these scammers is to quickly move you from a mainstream platform like Facebook or Twitter to a place only they control. It can be simple text messaging, WhatsApp, or something confusing. They don’t want to be complained about, and they don’t want you to involve other people in the conversation.
It is very important that they control as many variables as possible in your conversation. If the person strangely insists that you move away from the platform you met on, be suspicious.
What to do about it
Refuse. There is no compelling reason to ditch a platform you trust and already use. Do not relinquish control of the conversation to another person. If they don’t meet you halfway, you have no reason to keep talking.
Fake Link Sharing
While online dating scammers (other than cat catchers) are interested in making money, they may not do it directly. Online dating scammers can build your trust and lead you to follow fraudulent links.
We all love to share memes and good content with our friends, so you have a much better chance of clicking on what your “trusted†person will send you without hesitation. This could be a phishing link, malware download, or something else. If your online hottie really wants you to follow a link, be very careful.
What to do about it
Apple Standard Cybersecurity Rules. Don’t click on links you don’t know or trust. Do not download or run files whose origin is unknown. If really necessary, run an antivirus scan of all downloads and only open suspicious links using the browser sandbox Never enter confidential or personal information into the forms found under these links.
Model Pictures
Okay, it’s possible that your online model is actually an incredibly attractive professional model. However, the vast majority of people don’t have profile pictures that appear to have been taken from a magazine. So this is definitely a red flag.
Of course, scammers are beginning to understand this. Thus, they can simply steal another person’s profile picture. They can also steal other photos from that person’s profile to make their own look more authentic.
What to do about it
The easiest way is to simply run a reverse image search on the photo in question and see if it appears elsewhere.
Thinking with your head, not your heart
People tend to think emotionally. Marketers know this, so advertising focuses on feelings. They want to piss you off with a sex-selling strategy or make you feel sad and empathetic to buy a product or donate to a cause.
Scammers use the same guidelines, but they don’t even offer anything in return for your money, time, and emotional investment. This is why you should always keep some distance between yourself and your feelings when it comes to online relationships.
Until you are physically together, the relationship is not concrete. Lots of people find love on the Internet, but you have to be the one who gets the good catch, not the one who gets hooked by the criminal.
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