Trying to find your love on online dating apps? Beware of romance scams! Just don’t do this.
There has been a huge surge in online dating apps romance scams! Users of Tinder, Bumble, and Facebook have suffered big losses due to these so-called romance scams. While online dating apps are a great way to find love and build relationships, but what comes free with them are romance scams! Romance scams have been there for quite some time, but the numbers have skyrocketed in 2021, as the recent report by the US Federal Trade Commission shows. These romance scammers have tricked Americans looking for love online into passing over $547 million in 2021, which is nearly 80 percent rise as compared to 2020. The report further mentions that over the last five years, Americans have reported losing around $1.3 billion in romance scams.
How do they do it? Scammers generally create a profile with a false identity but try to use an attractive picture picked up from the web. The information about themselves that they usually share is often very patchy. What you find common in such scammers is that they will always end up making some excuses to not meet you in real life. However, that is not always the case as is proved by the recent Tinder Scammer case where the man actually conned women into relationships and then tricked them out of their money too.
Many people who have been scammed say they were contacted using online dating apps. But you don’t have to worry only about every contact on dating apps, as in 2021, more than a third of those who lost money to an online romance scam stated it started on Facebook or Instagram. The trick used by these scammers is to quickly navigate innocent users away from the dating site apps and establish contact via a personal number or other social media platforms. This allows them to bypass some of the safety features present on the online dating apps
These romance scammers put in a lot of effort to gain trust by weaving a web of lies with their stories to make others believe that they are in some real financial crisis and want money urgently. People who have lost money to a romance scam sometimes report giving money repeatedly because they believe they are assisting a loved one. But, it’s all a lie!
Scammers adopting love as a hook to attract individuals into fake investments, especially cryptocurrencies, which was the developing trend in 2021, the report mentioned. Interestingly, the highest reported losses to romance scams were paid in cryptocurrency last year which was $139 million.
