The modern world is developing too fast. Nowadays, you can meet your soulmate without leaving your cozy home armchair, you just need to register on a dating site and start communicating. However, with the rise of different opportunities, the number of scammers on the dating sites increases each day despite the efforts of the sites to root out them. Of course, there are some exceptions, for example, the possibility of facing romancecompass scams is kept to a minimum.
Nonetheless, sometimes, the most greedy, duplicitous and cunning dating scammers pass the fraud checking, so everyone should be aware of their possible actions in advance. There are ten examples of the most common scams on dating sites and on the Internet as a whole.
You can hardly meet a person who has never received such a letter. There are two most popular options. In a simple case, the letter is about a rich relative in Nigeria (or any other country) who has decided to bequeath their money to you. In a well-designed case, you cannot recognize a dating scammer from the first sight because they pretend to be a citizen of USA, Canada or some other well-developed European country. Usually, they spend time, communicating and cozying up to you. Your message exchanging can last for several weeks or even months. When they see that their victim let their guard down, something terrible happens suddenly with them. This emergency case makes them ask you to send money and rescue them. As soon as you comply with the request, this will be the last day when you see your money and communicate with the person. Unlike other dating sites, the romancecompass scam policy prevents receiving such letters and protects you from the very beginning.
This is one of the most famous Russian dating scams when a “beloved one” has a big desire to visit you, but, unfortunately, they don’t have enough money for traveling or even for a plane ticket. You might have been communicating with a person for quite a long time, and you believe in their sincerity, but you should be aware that experienced scammers know how to wait and not to rush things. They try to do their best not to arouse suspicion. When you send money, their aim is achieved, and you are left high and dry.
Besides, there can be different little variations of this type of online dating scams. For example, they can provide you with a copy of a ticket that they have bought on their own and try to convince you as much as possible in their sincere intentions. However, something will surely happen almost just before leaving, and they will ask you for money.
A person asks your address and full name to "send a gift." You only have to pay the customs duty and just to transfer money to a settlement account that they have told you. Usually, this is a bank account.
Of course, they can actually send a gift. However, the request to transfer money to a certain settlement account indicates the fact that you have faced one of the dating site scams. The required amount can be big or quite small. In the second case, there is one psychological nuance. You might think that $50 is okay for customs duty, and you can pay it. However, scammers have cranked out such “gifts.”
Emergency treatment scam is quite popular on the Internet, especially on the online dating sites. You communicate for several months, and you don’t have any reasons to think that something is wrong. However, the person suddenly needs some emergency treatment, and you are only person who can help them. There can be different variations, starting with their own problems with health and to their nearest relatives, for example, children. In some cases, scammer can ask money even twice, making up different health complications. These people can usually pretend to be American, but actually, this is another Nigerian scammer.
You communicate with a person on a dating site, and then decide to exchange phone numbers in order to level up your relationship. In a month or so, they decide to go somewhere to travel, and all your communication is only via phone. At first, everything is fine, but suddenly the person says that now they are in extreme conditions, for example, in the mountains, and they can get only text messages to short number. When you send a message to this short number, an unusually big amount is charged off your account. Everything is quite simple.
Everyone is afraid of becoming another victim of a scam and when people realize what has happened, quite often, they contact the police with the hope to punish the scammer. Not all scammers try to disappear as soon as possible, some of them try to get additional profit. They pretend to be the Nigerian police because the scammer is a Nigerian, and it's their scope of work. You may even get an email letter from this police that notifies you about the investigation and the necessity of certain amount of money to arrest your top offender. Be aware that the police of any country will never demand money to do their job.
It happens that users of dating sites arrange a hot video-meeting with their virtual lovers. They can exchange intimate photos or videos with a new lover or communicate with them in real time on Skype or other messengers. Often, the scammers use these intimate photos to blackmail their victims, especially if they have found out that the person is married or has high social status. The overwhelming majority of the victims are girls, but there are cases when men become the prey of swindlers as well.
You have probably got or seen messages in social networks that somebody needs money for an urgent operation, for example, a child dies or something like that. Of course, there are people who really need help, but in most cases, a fraudster creates such an ad and writes there the number of their bank card. You think you help a child cure cancer, but in fact, you feed the scammer. In general, if you have a desire to donate money, it certainly needs to be done, but not through social networks and not even by volunteers
The main idea of fishing is to get your secret data, for example, access passwords, credit card PIN, etc. You can receive an email letter from your bank, that your account has been hacked, and you should send them passwords urgently in order to restore it. The scammers receive passwords and withdraw all your money.
You can also get an information that you have won the prize, and you need to fill out a questionnaire. In this form, you need to provide a credit card number and a password for it. In general, if you receive an email letter with the request for any access, PIN or something else, then this is a scam.
You can receive an email letter or a text message that you have won a lottery, and that you should send a few dollars for money transfer. If you send money, you will hardly get the prize even a consolation one. If you have participated in any contest or lottery, then, as a rule, the gift is sent on the company dime. If you are asked to send money in advance, then this is a scam, do not send a penny.
Think twice before sending your money to a stranger or make a rash decision.