Valentine's Day is a Time for Love and for Scams

It’s nearly Valentine’s Day and so many are looking for love, or just a date on February 14th. So it’s a good time to remind people about the various online dating scams that are always lurking out there and to provide a few tips on detecting them.

1. Preying on the patriotic – Someone claiming to be a soldier serving overseas contacts a dater, starts an online relationship, and eventually gets around to asking for money. The funds are supposedly to buy computers, international cell phones, or other items to stay in touch with family and friends. Sometimes they use actual service members’ names and ranks and sometimes they steal that information from the deceased.

2. The blackmail – An online dating contact convinces victims to send explicit photos or text messages. Then, the victim is blackmailed into sending money to the thief. Alternately, the thief may claim to be a law enforcement officer and threaten the victim with jail if a fine for breaking an interstate law is not paid.

3. The fake dating club – The cyber thief sets up a phony dating club that requires a monthly membership fee. Fake photos and biographies are sent out regularly to lonely hearts to keep them hooked on the club and tricked into paying the monthly fees.

4. Chatbot scams – This one is particularly popular with the dating app Tinder. For those unfamiliar with Tinder, it pops up photos of potential love interests based on a profile the users set up as well as information from their Facebook profiles. If the user is attracted to the person in the photo (some level of profile is usually provided as well), he or she swipes right. If not, the swipe is to the left. When two users both swipe right on each other, a match is made and a chat session opens up between them. The chatbots communicate with the victims with an ultimate goal of getting malware onto the device or by conning them out of money in some way.

There are signs to look for and ways to avoid being caught out by these scams and others:

• If someone offers up his or her personal information very quickly or without knowing you at all, it could be a scammer. Some people truly are “open books” and give up private details quickly, but most real people do like to get to know the other person first. And they really should take some time first for the security of both parties.
• It’s often a first step to post on social media that you are looking for love. However, that could attract scammers who peruse statuses and profiles for such information and then send all kinds of spam. It’s better not to provide that information.
• Be wary of those who chop their stories up or change them. If it is a true story, there is no need to do this.
• While not everyone has perfect writing skills, be very suspicious of messages that are filled with poor grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. It could be a real person with atrocious writing skills looking for love, but could also be a scammer.
• Don’t give people you meet online and have not met and do not trust money; no matter how desperate they seem or how badly they tug on your heartstrings. If they are scammers, they are likely good actors too.
• Trust your instincts. If you suspect something odd, pull back.  If you think the photos you’re getting of the other person are too good to be true, they probably are.
• If the typing speed of the person on the other end of a Tinder chat (or other site) is super fast to a point it’s tough to believe it’s a person, it could very well be a chatbot. Be aware of responses to questions that don’t make sense too. After all, a chatbot is a robot and if you ask a specific question, it likely won’t have an appropriate response programmed into it.