Love is in the air? - Online dating scams

On Thursday 16 February trading standards will be in Commercial Road from 10:30am -12:30pm to raise awareness about online dating scams  - a bit of a spin on Valentines Week!

Online dating scams: Love is in the air!

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) estimate that around 200,000 people may have fallen victim to online dating scams in the UK.

Online dating scams can be particularly malicious and scam artists will normally invest a great deal of time and patience into grooming their victims; developing an online relationship supposedly built on love and trust.

The scammers, who are normally operating from outside the UK, portray themselves as perhaps an army officer or someone of a similar rank; another way of ‘hooking’ you in as they come across as being in a position of authority.

Once the scammers have ‘reeled’ in their victim they will ask them to send money to pay for a ‘sick mother’ or a flight home. If victims send the money off once, it is likely they will send more and more money before realising they have been scammed as they genuinely love the person they have been communicating with online and think they are in turn reciprocating that love.

On many occasions the victim not only loses out financially but also come to realise that the person they have built a ‘loving and trusting’ relationship with actually does not exist and is nothing more than a fraudster. The emotional stresses and the impact on the victim is nothing short of devastating.

Action Fraud have a number of tips to watch out for:

Are you a victim of dating fraud?

• You’ve developed a relationship with someone you’ve met online via emails, text messages and phone calls.
• The new love of your life looks like a supermodel in the pictures they send you.
• They ask you lots of questions about yourself but don’t tell you much about themselves.
• They quickly start calling you by a pet name or use endearing terms such as ‘darling’.
• They want to communicate with you through instant messaging and, texts, rather than through the dating website or chat room where you met.
• They don’t answer basic questions about where they live and work.
• They start asking you to send them money.

What should you do if you’ve been a victim of dating fraud?

• Report it to Action Fraud.
• Break off all contact immediately.
• Report the fraudster to the website or chat room operator.
• Do not send any more money.

Protect yourself against dating fraud

• Trust your instincts. If you think something feels wrong, it probably is.
• Guard your privacy.
• Never send money or give credit card or online account details to anyone you don’t know and trust.
• Communicate with people locally and not from overseas, although you should be aware that someone might tell you they are in the same country as you when they are not.
• Never reply to communications from someone who you meet on a dating site or chat room and then wants continue the communication by email.

If you would like more information regarding online dating scams you can visit: http://www.actionfraud.org.uk/fraud-az-romance-scams