Today every dating service user should stay on alert not to get into a scam and lose everything. Yes, fraudsters today are so violent and not scared of anything that they will even play with people’s emotions or ruin somebody’s life for money.
Here are a few of the schemes used by scammers:
The first scheme includes receiving a letter from some man with big promises of love, beautiful words about marriage, and other legends. A passionate virtual dating starts, and the woman gets already crazy in love, despite the fact the two people have never even met before. But suddenly, your virtual partner gets sick, has some troubles, or any other life circumstances make him ask you to help him with money. If you want the meeting to happen sooner than later.
Another legend used by scammers would be pretending to be a father of a deceased daughter or a widower that sees their relatives or former spouse in your image and gets crazy in love with you. However, any of such loud words mean only one thing, they try to put the blindfold on you. Do not get carried away with emotions, think soberly, and twice every time you receive a strange offer.
It is a way to scam a person to get money.
Another way to scam a person to get money includes indulging in blackmail, threatening a person to talk to their spouse about the secret conversation, and demanding money for this, most often rather big sums. But as soon as the scammer gets his money, he asks for more or can leak your private information anyways just for fun.
At this moment, it does not matter to them that they will probably ruin someone’s life or psyche, fraudsters are cold and violent people able of horrible deeds. So, please, never open too much to an unfamiliar person and never send anyone you hardly know your private photos.
The third widely used way of fraud is the so-called “Nigerian letters.” It means sending emails and texts from a wealthy man that wants you to store his money in your account. But to do that they will require all your credit details and even if at first they send you some funds, most probably, they were obtained in an illegal way.
Is there a way to protect yourself from scammers?
Fighting online fraud is almost useless. The best option is to use tried and true websites; for example, there has been never any news about the romancecompass scam. Fortunately, there are a lot of big dating sites with a good reputation, so you have a variety to choose from. And, if you google any dating services and see the mention of ads, then do not trust these sites. Most often those are small unfamiliar platforms. Otherwise, they would not need advertising, so, do not use them to avoid risks.
Some other tips are:
Investigate.
If you started a relationship online, do not rush. Any social profile can be fake, so examine the data – do a search on the photo of this person, on the profile of a person, name, and age, to find out if they appeared somewhere else. Be careful if someone invites you to leave Facebook or a dating service to talk “offline.”
Be skeptical of strangers.
If someone asks you for money or expresses violent feelings until you have ever met, you should take it as an oddity. Other “red flags” can be the impossibility to meet because of the word “abroad”, as well as urgent requests to keep your online relations secret.
Do not send money to strangers.
If you do not know the person personally, do not do it. Transfers abroad are almost impossible to track and return, and insurance companies do not cover such expenses. Do not believe the promises of the fraudster that they will return everything. Do not give anyone access to your banking information. And be vigilant if someone asks you to send a package on their behalf – you may be involved in a crime.
Break off all contact with the fraudster.
As soon as you understand that you are being deceived, stop any communication. Block a person in email and social media. Ask the delivery service not to bring you packages or letters. Soon the fraudster will switch to others and leave you alone. It Id, of course, harder if you have already fallen in love with them. But realize, that this is not the person, but rather the image that you have created in your head that has attracted you. When you understand that, the information that your romance was a scam will break the sympathy the only feeling you will face towards your former lover will be disgust.
Do not try to take revenge.
Although it can be very painful, do not try to get revenge on the person who hurt you. Be aware that you are dealing with a professional criminal. What you can do, on the contrary, is to help others. Spread the information about this person, in particular, write a post on social media, and warn all of your friends that use dating sites about the possible risk. Let’s spread out positively!
