Dating is a beautiful and life cherishing experience, but it becomes cumbersome and painful when a dating partner turns out to be a scam. An online dating partner might leave your heart, and you broke, so you must detect and take precautionary measures to avoid online dating scams. There is no particular season for online dating scams; however, a few common warnings are available that can save you. We have divided this article into 2 sections: detection and taking precautionary measures. You can jump to your relevant section as necessary.
Detecting the online dating scams
Detection of the dating scams can be done at two stages; first before matching and second after matching. Each stage has some common warning, either naturally or given by the scammers.
Common Warnings to Consider Before Matching
You can consider the following things that might help in detecting potential dating scams.
Selecting a credible online dating platform: Online dating is a new norm, but you should carefully select online dating sites to avoid scams. Perform in-depth research about any online dating platform before signing up.
Suspicious profile: After selecting a credible dating platform, you should check the profile carefully before swiping right. Scammers’ profiles usually lack the point description, pictures and they seem oddly perfect.
No sign of social media accounts: Scammers try to be as private as possible so that they can quickly vanish from your life. Owing to this concept, they avoid sharing their social media accounts with you. Before matching with any new connection, you should check their social media accounts.
Common Warnings to Consider After Matching
You can also detect scammers after connecting with them. The scammer might give you warnings from time to time; all you have to do is to understand those warnings and react accordingly.
They ask for money: The scammers’ primary purpose is to get money from you, and in doing so, they will ask you to give them some money for a variety of reasons like a sick relative, a business venture, and so on. According to the FTC, $304 million have been lost to romance scammers from 2016 to 2020.
They profess their love in no time: The scammers are always in a hurry, and they confess their love for you so quickly. The driving aim behind confessing love is that they could switch to another potential victim after robbing you quickly.
They say they can’t meet up: Another prominent warning by the scammers is that they won’t show up on the meet-ups and make lame excuses and tell you that some emergency occurred.
An unusual sign: Typically, people say they are not good or anything like this. In this case, you do not have to teach them that they are good; what you can do is trust them and take precautionary measures.
How to be on the safe side?
The scammers are always intended to get money from the people searching for love. Nevertheless, you can adopt the following measures to avoid online dating scams:
- Check the profiles thoroughly and never swipe right if anyone seems suspicious.
- Never share your personal information with strangers to whom you have started talking recently.
- Check and verify that your potential dating partner has social media accounts and they share pictures on those accounts.
- Make sure that you date a compatible partner. For example, Asians should go to Asian Dating sites to find a perfect match.
- You should report the profiles which seem fake or pose someone.
- Inform the relevant authority or institute if you are encountering any dating scam.