The Tinder Forex scam involves
signing up to a dating app and finding people willing to invest in
deceptive products designed to make one lose all their money. This
is after gleaning one’s confidence and trust.
It is called the Tinder Forex
Scam because it is developed in dating app chats. It
is treacherous, compared to other scams, because it strikes both a
private and personal chord.
If it has not been clear up until now, this type of scam shows
that scammers can leverage all of our weaknesses, manipulate every
aspect of our lives, and attack us even when we are most
vulnerable.
What are Dating Apps?
Dating applications are apps that connect people looking for
potential partners. Tinder, for example, is active in 140 countries
and has been downloaded by more than 100 million people.
However, it is not the only dating app used by scammers looking
for prey. In theory, a dating app allows you to choose someone,
from anywhere in the world, you are compatible with and puts you in
a position to get to know one another. In fact, it must be said
that it has worked for many.
Unfortunately, for those with bad intentions, the purpose of any
such tool is to make easy money.
How the Scam Develops
The scammer acts like any person on Tinder would, responding to
messages and phone calls, sending photos and videos, presenting
themselves as available and affable. In other words, they seem to
have a sincere interest in the targeted person. It actually seems
like a very normal connection that deserves to be deepened; also,
because it is never vulgar or unpleasant.
The scammer usually portrays themselves as a good-looking and
successful person who is ready to share the secrets of considerable
wealth with their new “friend.” To complete the package
is this affinity with someone who has knowledge of financial
secrets.
As time passes, one’s normal defenses lower, laying the path
for – from the onset – the real goal: to convince
people to invest in a product designed to steal their money.
The scammer does not insist. Perhaps they make a proposal, but
then they will not talk about it again until another occasion. The
aim is to intrigue and make the targeted person curious, in a
gentle way, by proposing an irresistible deal but leaving them free
to choose whether to take advantage of it or not. Until the
targeted person finds no valid objections to refuse.
As is the case of normal online dating, you do not know who is
really hiding behind a profile. You do not even know if it is a man
or a woman. Not only could they be of a different gender to what
they claim, it could be a profile run by a group of people. Even if
they are who they say they are, they might not be telling the truth
about themselves.
Most scammed persons speak about (supposedly) beautiful Chinese
women surrounded by cars and luxury items. They are probably not
women nor Chinese, but evidently, in the collective imagination, a
beautiful and successful Asian woman attracts attention and
inspires confidence. Among other things, as businesswomen, who
constantly travel, they can avoid, with plausible excuses, the
logical request for video chats by the interlocutors.
But it is not only men who have been targeted by scammers. Women
have also been targeted through profiles of interesting and
charming men, which have the sole purpose of inducing one to make
incautious investments.
Various ways of doing so have emerged from testimonies.
First of all, the interest in Forex investments is stimulated.
When a victim is willing to trade, but has no experience, the
scammer offers to let them practice on a demo account. Demo trading
accounts allow people to invest virtual money in an environment
with real-time commodity prices and currency movements.
Undoubtedly, the broker who runs the account is specifically
selected.
The brokers are in fact part of the scam and have a fake Forex
server running that they can manipulate as they wish.
The victims are guided through everything by the interlocutor
and all payments, with subsequent checks on the performance of the
investment, are made together.
On the other hand, those who have already invested are instead
diverted directly to the expert, the same “expert” who
supposedly made the “friend” rich, to speak straight to
them.
At this point, one would receive an IBAN to which one would
deposit money to invest.
One would hardly be told to write the real reason for the
investment to avoid controls by the bank.
The most careful scammers create a site, or an app, and operate
the server so that everything looks the way they want it to.
One would then see the money paid in vary in price as predicted
by a relative or by the well-informed, expert friend. In a short
time, it would appear that the money paid in has made thousands of
dollars; but none of it is real.
The Scam is There but You Don’t Want to See It
Looking at it from the outside in, the scam is obvious, but the
illusion that the scammer manages to create cannot be understood if
you are not involved.
An experienced investor would probably immediately recognize the
deception, but it is also true that if a scammer realized that they
were dealing with an expert, they would move on.
The task of convincing someone is not only what you say, but
also what you make them understand. If I flaunt a high standard of
living and reveal that it is the result of a series of investments,
aided by the advice of a relative who is well placed in such a
context where it is easy to receive news in advance, why should I
not tell my new friend on Tinder? After all, if they also invested,
it would not take anything away from me.
In fact, these days you learn to get to know a person by talking
about their interests: food, politics, cinema, the world pandemic,
travel, work, and even investments.
Ultimately, victims of Ponzi schemes are often involved by
friends and relatives in scams. Before giving away money lightly,
one should pause to think, is the investment too convenient to be
true? Is it true, or
is it a scam?
Catfish
The Catfish phenomenon is not new. They
are people who, either for low self-esteem or for clear disloyal
intent, create a false identity on the Internet, portraying
themselves through photos and information that do not belong to
them.
“Fake personas” are not hard to come
across on social networks or dating apps. As long as their intent
is not criminal, their actions may find justification, or they are
left to their own devices.
There are those who create fake profiles to spy on someone, out
of fear of showing themselves as they truly are, to offend (a
practice that often results in a crime), and then there are the
scammers who have made a profession out of the interpretation of
“other than oneself.” These types of scammers can be
found everywhere, ready to exploit a lapse in attention to steal
money and information.
On dating sites, these scammers make you believe that they have,
thanks to a relative or a trusted manager who works there,
exclusive information on a certain investment. Often it is a new
cryptocurrency, the value of which, according to them, is bound to
rise.
Only that this information is not in the public domain, so the
few investors who manage to seize the moment will earn exorbitant
amounts of money. Needless to say, sponsored cryptocurrencies do
not exist, and any money invested will end up in the pockets of
scammers.
These are not isolated cases. Reports are increasing and it is
important that people know about this new form of scamming.
Scammers must be reported in order to have even the slightest
chance of recovering swindled money and to save future possible
victims.
Recovering Your Money
Even if, thanks to word of mouth, this kind of scam is being
widely echoed in forums, there are already many people who have
lost tens of thousands of dollars by trusting the advice of a
social acquaintance.
The question is,
is it possible to get your money back? Unfortunately,
if the money has been sent to tax havens, it will be difficult to
get it back. In addition, it may be difficult to recover deposits
made to a particular banking system where there is no provision for
returning money paid.
A lawsuit, and in any case legal assistance from a lawyer
experienced in Forex scams, may be the only possible resource to
ask the scammer’s banks to return the swindled money.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.
