Scam Alert: Don’t let a romance scam break your heart this Valentine’s Day, even steal your life savings. The scammers and fraudsters know that online dating websites see a surge in sign-ups between New Year’s Day and Valentine’s Day, and are busy trolling for lonely men and women, especially older people living alone.
Whether you are trying out online dating for the first time or just want to brush up on your romance scam detection skills, this Scam Alert is a reminder that it could be a scam artist on the other end of your website search, not the new love of your life.
According to the National Consumers League, romance scams are consistently been ranked as one of, if not, the most expensive scams for the victims. In many cases, consumers have reported sending tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of dollars to the scam artists.
It’s not hard to see why. Love is a powerful emotion. Most of us would do practically anything to help out a friend or loved one in need. Fraudsters know this, which is why they devote significant time and energy to developing friendships and “love” with their marks.
In many of the stories reported to NCL, the scams begin the same way. The victim is first approached on an online dating website such as Match.com and social media platforms such as Facebook, or even directly via email.
The scammer claims to be interested in the victim romantically, and when the victim responds, their new “love” tells a story about how they are located far away from the victim, often overseas, and needs your money for medical bills, to get out of jail, or even airfare to visit you and advance the relationship.
It’s a bottomless pit. Once you start paying, there will inevitably be more and more requests for money to cover other fictitious expenses until the victim comes to realize it is a scam and stops paying, or worse, runs out of money.
Scam Alert warning signs that the person you’re dealing with is after your cash, not your heart:
- Asks you to wire money or to cash a check or money order.
- The “relationship” becomes romantic extremely quickly, with quick pronouncements of love or close friendship.
- Claims to be a U.S. citizen who is abroad, very wealthy, or a person of important status.
- Claims to be American, but makes frequent spelling or grammar mistakes.
- Asks for help with a business deal.
- Makes excuses about not being able to speak by phone or meet in person.
- Asks you to communicate via email, instant messaging, or text messaging instead of the online dating sites’ messaging services.
Scam Alert final warning:
If you’ve been approached by someone you think could be a romance scammer or if you’ve already fallen victim, DON’T keep speaking with the person who approached you. Ignore their emails, phone calls, IMs, or other communications. Instead, use the online dating site’s abuse flagging system to mark the account as suspicious and file a complaint at Fraud.org.
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