Scammers who operate on dating sites and applications can be both men and women. They can fool you pretending to be a rich widower or a pretty girl who does not mind talking. In high summer, we have collected top stories about how men lose money on dating sites. Here are three schemes that scammers use.
1. Blackmail by the police
A girl from a dating site provokes a man to have frank conversations and offers to go to WhatsApp to send intimate photos.
A few days later, the policeman contacts the victim with a serious conversation: supposedly the “girl” with whom the man was talking is a minor, and her parents are seriously concerned about what is happening.
Not to start a criminal case, you need to persuade her father to withdraw the statement.
When a frightened man calls the “parents,” they ask for a large sum to forget everything.
Protect yourself from scams. Do not pay and contact your lawyer. If the story turns out to be true, even the amount paid does not guarantee that parents change their minds to write a statement to the police.
2. Insecure dating Sites
The victim communicates with a stranger (scammer). From the first messages, the girl shows a playful mood: she flirts, ambiguously jokes and hints at the opportunity to get to know each other better. After the man is wormed up, he is offered to switch from a dating site to another service – for example, an anonymous video chat.
When a man follows the link, it turns out that first you need to register on the site and send a message to a short number to confirm registration. After that, money disappears from the victim’s account, the video chat does not open, and the new “girlfriend” adds the man to the black list.
Protect yourself from scams. Do not trust the services you see for the first time. If you’ve got a video call in a conversation, suggest switching to Skype or Facetime. If the girl continued to call on a third-party site, feel free to turn off the conversation – it’s a scam.
3. Blackmail with intimate photos
In the process of correspondence, the victim (men) is offered to exchange intimate photos. Having obtained a picture of the victim, the “girl” says that she can’t wait any longer and wants to immediately come to the interlocutor, (and she’s not asking for money). She says that she will get by herself, only the address is needed. Everything looks quite innocent.
But as soon as the man gives the address, the romantic mood of the “girl” immediately disappears, but her payment details and a direct threat appear instead. They say, if you don’t want your intimate photos to be seen by all the neighbors, please, here are the details. If you don’t pay for a certain period, it’s your own fault.
How to protect yourself. Do not pay: no one will go putting up your pictures all over the area. Sometimes fraudsters threaten to send intimate photos to the entire list of contacts on social networks. The only thing that can be done in this situation is not to pay. Because even if you pay them three times, no one guarantees that they will not put the photos online. Remember that it is better to be naked with money than naked without money. If you are not sure about the honesty of the person you are talking to, it makes sense not to send photos that make you easy to identify. For example, you can see the face or recognizable details like tattoos.
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