Tricks used by Romance/Online dating scammers to lure the victim

It has been noticed that in recent years, people are being more reliant on social media platforms, including online dating websites or apps to find their soulmates. Needless to say, the majority of the time, they are strangers with whom they are attempting to establish a relationship.. However, as the bond builds stronger, people do not think twice and give out their personal or financial information. Little do they know while sharing these things that the people they are trusting can bring potential harm to their financial condition as well as to their mental health.

In this article, we will discuss the perspective of online dating scammers as well as their victims, which will help you prevent falling for such online romance scams.

Understanding romance scammers

Romance scammers are those who attempt to deceive people in the disguise of posing as a romantic partner. They usually approach innocent victims on social media and online dating platforms by creating false identities. On the other hand, these scammers also try to manipulate or lure people into transferring their money or providing personal information. Although manipulation is one of the most common techniques used in a fraud. Scammers also try to gather sensitive information first and then employ extortion strategies to accumulate whatever they want.

Romance scammers generally procure others’ personal information and photos and approach their victims pretending to be someone else. Sometimes they approach their victims with a sense of urgency, claiming to have a medical emergency. Sometimes they pretend to be an entrepreneur or an investor and ask for money, promising to make it double. They even take weeks or even months to build a rapport and garner the trust of their victims before asking for money.

What are some examples of romance scams?

Perpetrators of romance frauds may leverage various tactics to defraud susceptible people. Some examples of romance scams are as follows:

Fake Emergency Scams:

Romance scammers mostly approach their targets as they have an urgent medical need or are dealing with some financial issues and ask their targets to help them with the required money.

Easy Money Scams:

Scammers pretending to be investment enthusiasts convince their target that they are highly knowledgeable about investment strategies and propose an easy money offer where they make a fake promise to their victims that they can double the money if they choose to invest with them.

Cryptocurrency Scams:

Scammers mostly prefer cryptocurrency for its decentralized nature which makes it hard for people to trace the stolen funds.Typically, scammers create a fraudulent website regarding crypto investments and lure them to invest through their site by promising exciting offers.

Extortion Scams:

Extortion scams come into the picture when scammers first garner victims’ sensitive information and then threaten them of exposing the data if they refrain from providing the money they want.

Malware Scams:

At times, scammers deploy spyware or ransomware to their targets’ phones to impersonate fraudulent activities. With the help of spyware, scammers can keep an eye on their targets’ activity and garner private information whereas, with ransomware, scammers are eligible to demand money keeping their data hostage. Scammers generally disperse malware using malicious files and attachments.

How do romance scammers find their victims?

Scammers find individuals that seem to be more vulnerable and susceptible to emotional appeals as potential targets. The vulnerable candidates include people who are widowed, separated, or lonely. But that does not mean others are in a safe place. Scammers are capable of targeting anyone who is looking for love and companionship online, irrespective of age, gender, and background. They use various tactics such as compliments, and flattery to trick their victims. These highly skilled ingenious scammers make love promises to garner their trust to victims and then put their demands forward when they sense that their targets are hardly in a position to turn them down.

How do con artists trick your mind?

The psychological manipulation that the romance scammers resort to trick people starts with building rapport with their target. Scammers do not ask for money immediately, rather they spend a lot of time getting to know the targets. They swerve victims’ minds into providing them with personal information and try to build an emotional connection in order to make them more vulnerable. To make this connection even stronger, scammers make declarations of love by uttering phrases that are designed to elicit an emotional response. The bond they create helps them to know about the victims’ emotional vulnerabilities like fear, guilt, etc. which they later leverage for their own profits.

How do I report a scammer?

If you get scammed by a romance scammer you can take legal action and report a file against them to your local police department. Contacting the customer service and support team of the online dating site is also necessary so that they can restrict the scammer from the site and take further action with the help of law enforcement.

Moreover, you can take help from organizations that are experienced in the field. Financial Fund Recovery is an effective countermeasure you can opt for to combat such scams. We work along with cyber security experts and law enforcement agencies to help our clients recover their money. Not only that, We provide our clients free counseling and guidance that help them to prevent falling for potential scams again even after retrieval of the lost fund.

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