I am fairly sure that you’re familiar with the Internet (you’re reading this article on the Internet right now, after all). And since you’re here, I’m also pretty positive that you’ve experienced some sorts of online dating scams before.
And that’s not a good or a bad thing… Because scams are actually pretty common on the Internet… In fact, if you google it, you’ll find that in 2017 almost $100 million dollars have been lost to scams online. THAT’S INSANE!!!
If you look at the usual online dating scams, those are just made up things. Someone creating a whole narrative in hopes of finding a person vulnerable enough to believe it. Basically, fabricating facts (as I like to call it) …
And what better place to fabricate facts than a free, anonymous, and weakly regulated place like the Internet?
This is where our topic of interest comes in… Online Dating Scams. And here are the Top 5 Online Dating Scam Patterns And Our Advice On How To Avoid Them…
Basically, because people love to lie, and because the Internet makes it soo much easier to lie and scam others this issue is incredibly widespread. And you’ll be surprised… But even normal people who don’t usually lie can do it online. It’s just that it’s too easy and too alluring at times. I’m sure you’ve had thoughts about it yourself…
Now, I’m not talking about serious scamming people out of their money. What I’m referring to are little, simple lies. Mostly innocent ones. Ones that barely have an impact on the other person…
The truth is that most of us just make up some lies as we go about our lives and we don’t even register them as lies. And that translates online even more because it’s just soo easy there.
But more on that later… How about we actually start the list and discuss the different Online Dating Scams there are out there?
1. Fake Profiles
Now, this is just the beginning… It’s so easy to create a fake profile these days it’s almost done for you.
All you need is to click the “Create New Profile” or “Register” button on your Online Dating Site of choice.
Then you Google some photos of an attractive person.
You put on a bio that sounds cool… AAAND voilà… You have yourself a fake profile, completely decked out with the resources it needs to scam people online.
And this doesn’t have to go far. You may want to pretend you’re someone you’re not… Being mysterious and whatnot. That’s a normal human craving that people can have. You may be doing this to satisfy your need to feel in power or whatever.
And that’s not harming anyone… right? Just take a look at some hilarious and weird Tinder Profiles we found:
Salad
There’s actually a profile (or maybe several, who knows) on Tinder that’s named “Salad” and it’s not someone unfortunate enough to be named after broccoli and lettuce… Salad is just that… a salad, looking for love…
If this is weird, you’re going to LOVE the next one:
Cupcake
Cupcake is not just your ordinary cupcake. He’s not the cupcake you ate last night before bed either. It’s a fully self-aware sweet being, completed with nice frosting and chocolate flavor. Delicious, I know…
Dog
An actual profile of a dog. Every time he responds it’s just “bark” … Nothing more, nothing less. Wow.
As you can see it’s so easy to create a fake profile (which is why online dating scams are sooo popular) that many people are doing it for the fun of it. But what’s to stop someone to actually make a believable fake account of a person. Think about it… There are TONS of photos online of people. You can also just go on Facebook search a random name and download that person’s photos (which is identity theft by the way… another horrible thing) and use those same photos for a new, account with a different name and put that thing on Tinder, ready to talk to strangers you meet online.
And you can use that to your advantage…
Regardless of your intentions, it’s still not the right thing to do really… It’s just setting this behavior as ‘normal’ which is further pushing it and that’s bad.
But whatever… you just do it to have fun. You get a few matches you play a role, it’s all cool.
I actually have a very recent example for you guys reading this!
A friend of mine recently told me he had made a second Tinder profile… A FAKE one.
I was skeptical at first, but when I saw it I calmed down a bit (not that I approve of this, but…). His ‘name’ was Christian. He was a sexy businessman who has a kink for BDSM.
Now, you may not have watched the movie “50 Shades Of Gray” (do you live under a rock???), but the main male character there is the exact person my friend was posing as on his Tinder… He even got photos of the actor as the Tinder photos.
That’s not a hard scam, the women he matched knew that he wasn’t really who he was and they were having fun relieving boredom, as did he. He never intended to do anything significant with it… It was just for fun.
Aand … I guess that’s alright? People will have different opinions on this.
HOWEVER … Not all people on the Internet are like my friend. Most Fake profiles are intended to hardcore lie and scam their victims. And you should really look out for those.
I’ll teach you some techniques on how to deal with scammers later, but for now, let’s go to the next type of scam that I personally did not expect to even exist until I saw it with my own eyes for the very first time…
2. Money For Chat
Sounds really stupid but let me elaborate…
The basic concept is the following: A normal woman’s online dating profile. Usually good-looking, cute, sexy… Basically, an auto right swipe for all men.
BUT in the bio, it says something along the lines of: “$5 and I’ll chat with you” or “Send me $5 and you may get something nice” and their PayPal account link afterward.
You see where this is going, don’t you?
Basically, the girl is asking for money to even chat with you. She probably auto matches everyone to increase her chances of getting matches herself that will send her money.
I couldn’t believe that this could be a thing until I actually saw a photo of it online with the girl’s PayPal earnings on a photo. A few hopeful guys actually send $10 or even $15 to find themselves blocked on Tinder right after.
I even stumbled upon such an account not so long after that. I was truly amazed.
And it’s not too far-fetched, right? I bet you can see something like this working, what with all the desperate guys that are out there trying their luck on Online Dating Sites…
It just feels wrong to me. It defeats the whole purpose of Online Dating. It’s basically exploiting it for personal gain. A heinous and terrible thing that lets online dating scams have a lot of presence. That’s how I feel on this subject.
And, mind you, this girl may not even be real… Behind the cute Rebecca who asks for $5 to chat with you may be some random scammer who wanted to make a few quick bucks and made a fake profile.
Do yourself a favor guys and stay clear of these… It’s a waste of time and, most importantly, money.
There’s nothing more for me to say here, let’s go to the next Online Dating Scams… And we’re getting more and more serious.
3. Nigerian Prince Type Scams
We all know these funny and stupid email scams where a self-proclaimed Nigerian Prince who has a fortune needs to move his money abroad but has issues with their bank or whatever… yadee-yadaa.
But it’s a lot more sinister when this comes to Online Dating. And the reason why is because Dating and Relationships are something emotional and people looking for love are more vulnerable than usual.
And that’s what the average person is doing when they log onto an Online Dating site… They are looking for love. They are lonely. They want to feel intimacy…
This is why scammers in Online Dating are even more insidious. They play on people’s emotions and trick them into handing over money all the while pretending to have strong feelings for them.
And it’s, arguably, incredibly easy to spot an Online Dating Scammer, because they all act like that typical Nigerian Prince from your spam inbox.
- They have bad grammar and mispronounce a TON
- They instantly escalate their feelings towards you, showing affection without even knowing anything about you
- They confess their strong feelings and talk about how they want to meet you but always find excuses
- They ask for money because a family member needs immediate medical attention, they went bankrupt suddenly, or they don’t have money for plane tickets to come see you
Things like that. Obvious scam, I know. But it the right context it can all sound incredibly plausible…
Imagine you’ve suffered from a terrible breakup and you feel vulnerable and lonely. Then some beautiful person on the Internet matches you through Tinder and you start chatting. They validate you tremendously, telling you they love you and wish they’d be together with you… It’s something you’ve been craving. You’ll want to believe it’s true.
There are actually countless of stories about people getting ripped off of their money in this particular fashion via online dating scams… This is my favorite one:
A story about Amy and “Duane” … Basically what happened was that Amy had lost her husband of 20 years due to his cancer and was now living alone. She didn’t have many options when it came to men since she lived out of the city so she tried online dating.
After creating her profile, she soon found Duane, a 61-year-old man who had a 100% match with her. She actually messaged him first, saying that she doesn’t know what 100% match is but it sounds interesting.
They began to talk and Duane was basically everything she’d longed for. He was caring and loving. He soon expressed his feelings to her and she actually fell in love with him too. And all of that happened online.
It was all like a pleasant dream, even Amy said it at one point. But soon after the scam started. See, Duane was traveling a lot for work. He had this one last job that he needed to do in Malaysia, and after that, he’d come back and finally meet Amy. But unfortunately, he needed money because some things got held up at customs.
So she sent him money. Then he needed more money for the flight. So she sent it again.
The flight got canceled and something else happened, he needed money again. She sent money, again…
This continued until there was nothing from him anymore. He just suddenly vanished.
But why would Amy just do that? For someone who she doesn’t really know (apart from their 1 month of messaging back and forth).
Even if you know for sure in the back of your mind, that they are a scammer, you’ll want to believe otherwise. You may even give them excuses why they can’t be a scammer. And before you know it you’re sharing personal information and giving them money. It sounds terrifying…
And it can even become something A LOT MORE SERIOUS than just scamming… For example:
4. Money Laundering
I’ll gloss over this one quickly because I’m not as familiar with this exact type (I’ve had the other ones happen to me, thankfully I didn’t give in to the scam).
Basically, everything will be like a ‘normal’ Online Dating Scam with the same procedures as mentioned before. But they’ll ask you to transfer some money from some accounts to others and even through your personal bank account.
That’s basically so these people can launder off the money they’ve acquired probably by scamming other people like you.
And here’s an example I found for this particular case:
A 65-year-old woman had been convicted of money laundering after she was scammed by a group operating in Ghana.
Basically, the group was targeting elder women (over 60 years) because they were the most vulnerable and scamming them, promising true love and what not on Online Dating sites. Like the previous story, with Amy, this one sounds the same…
That woman gave away all the money she could muster. And after that, the scammers used her to launder the money from other victims.
Basically, the scammers would tell the other victims that they need to send the money to the woman’s bank account, because of complications with their account. And then, the 65-year-old woman would send it away to Ghana, successfully laundering it in the process.
That’s all I know about this one, sorry… let’s go to the last one:
5. Social Media Sex Bots
This is a LOT like the Fake Profile ones. This time… it’s sexy women on the profile pictures that seemingly offer and advertise cam shows and other pornographic material on these Social Media accounts.
Typically, they’ll add you, like some of your posts and/or photos and that’s it. But they don’t bring any value to the table, so why even add these?
They are pretty easy to spot. A random friend request on Facebook isn’t something usual. But what’s that? It’s coming from a sexy, half-naked girl? Interesting, let me check it out…
What? Her top and only post is: “Do you want to see me strip naked? Click here: (link)”and another sexy photo… That’s absurd.
That’s all there is to it. Just don’t fall for it guys, report the profile for a fake one or whatever and decline the friend request.
I’ve also seen this same scam technique on Twitter, so I suppose it’s not a Facebook exclusive deal.
OOOh… I’ve found that actually having your profile tagged as “In a Relationship” stops these… maybe they target only single guys or something. But the fact of the matter is that my friend who is in a relationship has never seen even one, while I’m bombarded with 2-3 per week… So annoying…
And there it goes… Our top 5 picks for the vicious Online Dating Scams you’ll encounter whether you like it or not. Just keep these in mind and you’ll know the difference to hopefully never get scammed while searching for love (or something else) online.
All in all, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this and you’re now more informed on this issue with online dating. Remember to just keep this in the back of your mind and never fully trust anyone you find on the Internet, especially with your money or with money related things. Good luck out there!
