Online Dating Scams

Every few days we read about another victim of an online dating scam.

Don’t be fooled, it could happen to you if you don’t keep a certain level of wariness about the people that you exchange messages with online. There are warning signs that you should be aware of so you can protect your heart and bank account.

• Meet the person in the real world as soon as the heart strings start tugging. If they can’t meet you, consider ending the conversation then and there
• If they take the conversation outside of the dating service messaging system, you’re exposing a lot of personal information about yourself, be very careful when encouraged to exchange email addresses and phone numbers
• If they ask for money because of a family emergency, a sudden theft or any other reason end it then and there, you’re only a dollar sign to them
• If you haven’t yet met them and their style of conversation changes from one message to the next you could be dealing with a group of scammers impersonating the one person you’re speaking with, raise your suspicion level and be prepared to move on
• If they don’t answer personal questions with a lot of detail or their answers change over time, they likely are not who they say they are

You can take some basic steps to protect yourself and you should always:

• Google the person’s dating username and any other personal details you have. If they’ve scammed someone before you just may find the story online
• If you get their email address or phone number Google that too, the more you search them out the better you can confirm if they are genuine or not
• Never use your main email address to join a dating service, create a new email address so you can separate online dating from the rest of your personal life, this simple step can protect you from revealing too much personal information to someone you don’t know and provide an additional step of security if the dating service itself gets hacked
• If you buy a dating service membership use a prepaid credit card to protect yourself from fraud

Until you have that face-to-face meeting and really find out if the relationship is going anywhere, remain suspicious.

Police issue warning after Riverland man loses more than $176,000 in online dating scam
The victim transferred the money into overseas accounts over three months between October and January after being tricked into thinking the money was going to a person he met online. A police spokesman said they had confirmed the victim was being scammed.

U.S. Marshals Arrest Woman in Kennewick After She Allegedly Steals $350K from Online Boyfriend
21-year-old Donisha Pitchford flew out from Seattle to Tuscon. Arizona to meet a man she met online in late November of 2015. When that man left his home, Pitchford stole $350,000.00 from him and took off with her real boyfriend, for a trip around the United States. “One lump sum, $350,000.00 in hundred dollar bills. In cash. It was bank rolled, each one of the stacks,” explained Deputy U.S. Marshal Darrick Swick.

Lonely hearts conmen who seduced woman on dating site with tricks from pick-up artist’s ‘bible’ The Game are jailed for scam that tricked her out of £1.6million
The pair sent the victim flowers and chocolates from ‘Anderson’ and told her he loved them after just a few weeks, and was having a difficult time working on a project in Benin, Africa.
He said that he wanted to come home to be with her but first needed some specialist machinery so he could finish the project. He asked her for a loan to pay import duty on the machinery and she paid over £30,000 into the business account of his supposed personal assistant, a man allegedly called Brandon Platt.