How to Protect Yourself from Online Dating Scams

Greater digital adoption is impacting the way people search for partners and engage in romantic relationships. As more and more people take the online route, the engagement with dating apps and websites is dramatically rising. However, there is a rising threat of online dating scams that needs to be addressed.

Volumes of daily messages are rising

It is estimated that during the COVID-19 lockdowns, daily messaging rose anywhere between 10% and 25% across online dating platforms. This increased traffic has prompted cyber criminals to manipulate the situation to their advantage. As a result, there is a proportionate increase in the number of imposters on these platforms looking to dupe unsuspecting users.

Cyber criminals invest a lot of time to orchestrate these scams so as to not raise suspicion. These criminals will chat for hours through text messages or on phone, exchange emails, and even send flowers, etc., to the victim's house. But, when it comes to their own identity, they do not disclose their true details. They may share identification documents to prove they are genuine, but these documents are fake or stolen.

Victims lose money, at times their entire life-savings

There are many instances reported where people lost significant amounts of money to someone they met and interacted with on dating platforms. Cyber criminals create many fake profiles with stolen pictures of attractive people on dating websites and apps. They connect with users and try to win their trust over a period of time. The most popular tool that cyber criminals use to trick people into trusting them is social engineering.

Once they gain trust, cyber criminals start playing their true games. or share on the ishare distress stories to extract money, in many instances that could be the entire life-savings of a person. For instance, a woman in her early fifties was duped of all her money by a man she met online. Not only did she lose her savings and the retirement money, she also took two loans for him. The man simply vanished after stealing all the money.

Older people at a greater risk

Older people, looking for companionship, are more at risk of losing money. This is for two reasons. One, older people become more trusting with age. And two, they have more savings. This, however, is not to suggest that younger people cannot fall prey to such scams.

In fact, a lot of young people are targeted on social media platforms and duped in the name of love and companionship. They are often tricked by sugar daddies and sugar mommas into sharing their credit card details on the pretext of paying off the victim's debts or paying them in exchange for the companionship. However, these are mechanisms only to access credit card or banking information.

How to spot an impostor on online dating platforms

One of the hallmarks of online dating scams is that most of the communication is either through text, phone, or email. It's never in person or video-based chats. Cyber criminals come up with excuses repeatedly to avoid in-person meetings and deceive the victim. This should be a big give-away of an impending scam.

Dating platforms and sugaring sites are full of scammers looking for vulnerable people to target. They do include instructions for users, advising them to refrain from sending any money. This means users are on their own and responsible for any scam that they may fall victim to. Therefore, be vigilant and do not get overwhelmed by the emotions that the person, on the other side of the internet, expresses.

Pay close attention to warning signs. If something looks suspicious or too good to be true, it probably is. Trust your instincts. It may be useful to learn about the warning signs of online dating fraud and how to spot fake photos by searching the images in popular search engines.

The article has been written by Neetu Katyal, Content and Marketing Consultant

She can be reached on LinkedIn.