Online Dating Scams: How to Avoid Them

Scammers are everywhere on the internet, and they also hunt for victims on online dating sites. There are a number of red flags and signs to watch out for. These scammers mostly target men, but women are still just vulnerable as well. We will go through a list of common dating scams, red flags to watch out for, and how to protect yourself from fraud.

Dating scams usually begin by a fraudster signing up a new personals profile and then begin contacting people immediately. If a dating site has a lot of male profiles available, they will sign up posing as a very attractive female. This fake user will then send a number of duplicate emails out to many different men in the hopes that some respond and continue a conversation. However, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between a real person who is interested in a relationship or a date, versus a fake profile and scammer. More information about online dating scams and statistics can be found at the FBI and the AARP. If you were hit by an online dating scam (or any kind of internet scam), the FBI recommends submitting a complaint at www.IC3.gov

Watch for Personal Information & Don't Give Out Your Personal Info

One major red flag to watch out for is what the content of the message is. Oftentimes, scammers will come right out of the blue telling you about how "perfect" your profile is for them (how deeply in love they are with you). It's also very suspicious if their photo looks like something out of a glamour magazine. Immediately, they will send their email address so you can talk to them outside of the dating service itself. The purpose of this is to get the conversation off the dating site and so they can obtain your email address, which can be used for spam purposes as well.

Email spam is bad enough, and it invites multiple fraud opportunities being sent to your email address. What the really bad scammers do is they continue the conversation and attempt to build a more serious relationship. They want to steal your name, address, work-related data and other information. In some cases, victims even give up their payment information, which is a terrible idea to do in any online dating site with a person you've never met before. Solution: Never provide personal or sensitive information, and keep the conversation on the dating site's instant messaging system. There is no reason to contact a brand new member through email if they can just as easily continue contacting you through the site.

Obvious Scam: People Asking for Money on a Dating Site

This one is pretty obvious. There is no reason for someone asking strangers for money on a dating site. Surprisingly, this does happen more often than most folks realize, especially on a dating site. Scammers will post a cute or handsome (fake) photo of themselves and then come up with an excuse to ask for money. Oftentimes they will claim that they are widowed or come up with a sob story of some kind to gain sympathy. It then begins to morph into a typical Nigerian type scam! In actually, this is almost always some happy scammer in Africa, Russia or China trying to make a buck or two.

One very common romance scam tactic is when they plan on meeting up with you, they suddenly come up with an excuse not to meet up due to some kind of tragic event. In some cases, they hope they'll receive money or gifts out of sympathy, or they will talk about needing money for financial problems or emergencies. These scammers will also use "guilt trip" tactics and will also try to take advantage of men, who think they are doing the gentlemanly thing in helping out a pretty girl in financial distress.

Pay Attention to Grammar and Location

While it is perfectly reasonable and common for people to seek out long-distance relationships on online dating sites, you should still pay attention to location when a new member attempts to contact you. A scammer will often contact anyone they can, regardless of distance. If a first contact member immediately provides an email address, asking to hang out sometimes (even though they live 2,000 miles away), it looks kind of suspicious. A red flag to watch out for: If someone claims they are in the US, but is working or traveling overseas in another country.

Another red flag is Grammar. Most scammers typically live outside of the United States, usually in countries located in Africa. It is fairly easy to spot foreigners on dating sites just by the grammar that they use. These errors include: English words being spelled wrong, commas being used in the wrong places, and incorrect syntax. If a member claims they are from New York City and the grammar sounds a bit off, it's a red flag to keep an eye on. Watch out for the "catfishing" scam - where someone is completely different than what they say. After all, they can post fake photos and you don't really know for sure who is on the other end of the computer until it's time to meet up.

Don't Let Dating Scammers Ruin Your Chance at True Love

Sometimes there will be false red flags. Just because they are long distance doesn't always mean they are scammers. After all, one of the main points of an online dating site is the ability to find your special someone anywhere in the world. Keep the red flags in mind and don't give up your personal information, which is what scammers are really after.

Safe and Secure Free Dating Site:

It doesn't matter if a dating site charges money or not, scammers will always be there. This includes the issue of some dating sites purposely creating fake profiles to lure members into giving their credit card information out to them, or luring people into paying upgrade costs to view fake profiles. Criminals make tens of billions of dollars on internet scams each year, so no price can keep them off paid dating sites.

Our site ( LetsHangOut.com ) is completely free and safe to use. We don't charge for "upgraded features", so we don't ask for your credit/debit card information. So you shouldn't give that information out to any member of our site either, just to be safe. We keep a watchful eye on IP addresses, new members and their behavior. We also actively ban scammers when they are found or reported, and recommend that communication is kept on our private messaging system - as we described above - in order to keep online dating safe and secure.

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