All You Need is Love... and a Network Security Solution
Have you tried online dating? There are many happy couples who attribute their love to the matchmaking algorithm of an online website. Internet dating is a legitimate option for modern singles, but like most good things on the web, naive users run a risk of getting scammed.
How to Spot an Online Dating Scam
To help you better understand what an online dating scam looks like, here are eight steps of a common online dating scam provided by Hoax-Slayer.com.
- A person registers at an online dating service and creates a profile. The profile will include information, and possibly a photograph, of the person along with a way for interested people to make contact.
- In due course, a scammer contacts the person posing as someone interested in exploring a possible romantic relationship.
- The victim responds and the pair begins corresponding regularly. They may soon bypass the dating service contact system and start communicating directly, usually via email.
- Over time, the scammer will slowly earn the trust of the victim. He or she may discuss family, jobs and other details designed to make the correspondent seem like a real person who is genuinely interested in the victim. Photographs may be exchanged. However, the "person" that the victim thinks he or she is corresponding with, is likely to be purely an invention of the scammer. Photographs may not even show the real sender. The victim's apparent love interest may look completely different to the person in the photograph and, in reality, may not even be the same gender.
- After the scammer has established the illusion of a genuine and meaningful relationship, he or she will begin asking the victim for money. For example, the scammer may claim that he or she wants to meet in person and ask the victim to send money for an airfare so that a meeting can take place. Or the scammer may claim that there has been a family medical emergency and request financial assistance. The scammer may use a variety of excuses to entice the victim to send funds.
- If the victim complies and sends money, he or she will probably receive further such requests. With his or her judgement clouded by a burgeoning love for the scammer's imaginary character, he or she may continue to send money.
- Finally, the victim will come to realize that he or she has been duped, perhaps after waiting fruitlessly at the airport for a "lover" who, will of course, never arrive.
- Meanwhile, the scammer pockets the money and moves on to the next victim. In fact, the scammer may be stringing along several victims simultaneously.