5 Ways To Spot An Online Dating Scammer
The number of online dating scams has been increasing every year, with reported losses in the millions of dollars. In this article, we’ll show you some ways to identify a potential online scammer. Here are 5 ways to spot a scam!
1. Does something seem, I dunno, a little off? Do some homework! Check their photo! Copy the photo then paste it into Google’s Reverse Image Search. If you see the same image used in other places on the internet, you know it’s a scammer. Check out their profile in depth. Does it have only a few images and they look like stock photos of some model?
When having conversations with a new person, don’t just get the name of the city they say they live in. Ask where in the city they live. Get some cross streets, if you can bring that up in conversation.
Do they say they work or live in another country?
Do they say they’re in the military?
These are all HUGE warning signs.
Oftentimes, they say they are engineers, who work offshore. Or military. Or engineers for the military, who go out of town frequently. Or offshore military, who are mostly out of town. Or out of town offshore engineers.
Wait, what? Or some variation of all of these morphed into one! Be skeptical!
I actually feel sorry for the poor, decent legit military engineers of the world who are trying to date online. These scammers are ruining it for them!
2. Look for poor grammar. This is a telltale sign. If they are misspelling things left and right in texts and posts, be suspicious. English is usually not their first language. Don’t be fooled by a “sexy” foreign accent. If the writing style, grammar, wording, feels inconsistent and off, it’s probably scammers. They usually work in groups so it could be a number of them messaging you during the time you communicate.
Jenna Lebron, a Guest on Widow 180: The Podcast, reported that all the texts and emails she received from one recent guy were broken English with numerous grammatical errors. Then one day, she received a long, beautiful, grammatically perfect poem/story professing true love and everlasting love together forever. Written in perfect English. These scammers tend to copy and paste love letters and poems they find on the internet.
One thing you can do is to Google search phrases they use and see if they come up on other sites from the internet.
3. They VERY QUICKLY talk about love within the first couple of weeks.
They are some serious smooth-talkers. This is emotional manipulation at its best. They use phrases like “I’ve never felt this way before”. And “I know You’re my soul mate.’ And “we’re meant to be together”. They talk about love very quickly, TOO quickly, in fact. They say things like “I want to take care of you.”
It’s a tactic they use for you to give up any personal details that you normally wouldn’t share. They use this to find your answers to security questions. You know, the ones I’m talking about, right? Questions like ‘ What was your first pets name?’ or ‘What’s your favorite restaurant?’
So, beware of the sweet talkers! Are they OVERLY flattering? Are they OVERLY devoted to you even though you haven’t even met yet?
4. Scammers will quickly want to communicate other ways, off the dating site.
Alex Sinclair, a widow who was scammed out of $60,000, told us on Widow 180: The Podcast “He told me that he didn’t have good internet connection where he was. He told me he wasn’t getting the pictures I was sending him, so he asked me to email them to him instead, which I did. Big mistake. Don’t ever give them your email address.”
Oftentimes, scammers will ask you to email or Skype or use WhatsApp. Don’t give ANY personal info like phone number or email address to someone you haven’t met in person yet. It’s best to ALWAYS set up an alternate email address that isn’t connected to your personal or banking information. Always, ALWAYS use a different email address. And always set up 2 factor authentication to protect your accounts. What is 2 factor authentication? It’s an extra layer of security to your account in case your password gets stolen.
Is doing all of this extra work a pain in the rear end? Yes. But, the pain of losing your hard-earned money to some creep is a thousand times worse.
5. You never meet.
They plan to meet, but then cancel at the last minute because some “emergency” comes up. They may give you a sob story about some family trauma, a business deal they had to take care of, maybe even ask you for money to help this sudden situation!
This is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER. If they keep ditching your plans, you need to ditch the guy! Put a time limit on it. If they can’t meet within the first 2-3 weeks, then move on! 99% of the time they are a scammer!
If you DO find out that a person on a dating site is in fact a scammer and not who they claim to be, PLEASE report them to the dating site so they can be removed!
I am doing a FREE Workshop called
New Year, New Love!
Workshop date: Thursday January 27, 2022
(but you don’t have to attend live. The video will be emailed to you!)
