ONLINE DATING SCAMS IN REAL WORLD AND CYBER WORLD
Before the Internet, online dating scams were not popular, but they were known as the romance letter scam that existed in the 1980s (Diana Selck). Back in the day, we had to meet people face-to-face to obtain feelings for someone. In this generation, it is easier to find a date online than it is in person for some people. Ever since then, this has increased the number of online dating scams there are per year. The majority of online dating scams result from different countries like Nigeria, Russia and the Ukraine. It is said on A Better Business Bureau that Nigerian frauds consist of 10-12 people with a leader and they send out thousands of initial messages to people they find on dating sites or social media accounts. Online dating scams is a new type of fraud that has recently became a phenomenon in many countries around 2008. Between April 2010 and April 2011, the United Kingdom national fraud reporting center, Action Fraud, recognized 592 victims of the crime. Almost half of these victims lost over $5,600 (Whitty and Buchanan, p. 4).
MEANS OF CARRYING OUT ONLINE DATING SCAMS
Online scammers play emotional games to receive money, gifts or personal details about people. They may use social media or email as their main source. Scammers normally create fake online profiles with photos of others they find on the Internet. Dating websites such as Tinder, Bumble, EHarmony or Match.com may be used, or some scammers may even use social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, KIK or Snapchat. Most scammers do not feel comfortable enough with their own bodies to post pictures of themselves, so they seek out models or better-looking people to use as themselves. These scammers will get you to gain their trust and interest with their endearing words and flirting. According to Buchanan and Whitty’s journal, scammers start the relationship out on the dating site, then they insist to communicate by Instant Messenger and email. Over a period of time, they will start out asking for small gifts and that will lead to larger amounts of money. Once they have you hooked, they will normally make up a fake emergency happened and that they need money as soon as possible. For example, they may claim that a family member is ill and needs an expensive operation, they need money to finish things for their business, they need money to help raise their child, or the developed a form of cancer, anything to get you to feel empathy towards them and want to send them money to help. A woman in Baltimore, Maryland had an interesting story to tell. She decided she would give online dating a try and met an older guy on Tinder who said that he lived in Baltimore but was in Paris for a work trip. For several weeks they spent countless hours video chatting, texting and even talking on the phone. He was the man that was in the photos, but he deceived her into sending more than $75,000 (WCPO Cincinnati, 2018). The man told her he was having a problem at work and he needed her to accept a package with $400,000, jewelry and documents. She got multiple calls from a company requesting tons of money to ship the package and get it through customs. FBI Special Agent Keith Custer said that $75,000 is an average loss for online dating scam victims. He said, “We have information that they're almost sweatshops overseas, often in Nigeria, where someone kind of has a game plan or script and they have a number of people underneath them working off this script” (WCPO Cincinnati, 2018). It is extremely common for military pictures to be used to scam people. Chris Grey, the head of public affairs for the United States Criminal Investigation Command, says that scammers will use pictures of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan and sometimes they will use pictures of the Army Chief of Staff (Better Business Bureau, 2018). It is not right to take someone’s identity at all, especially of the deceased.
THE EXTENT OF ONLINE DATING SCAMS
The amount of different social media platforms is the reason why online dating scams are
on the rise. FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that there were 14,546 victims of Romance/Confidence Fraud in 2016 (Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2016, p. 17). This number has gone up drastically considering there were a total of 5,791 victims in 2014 (Kellie Ell, USA Today, 2017). More than double the amount of money has been lost since 2014. Victims of online dating crimes lost $220 million in 2016, while in 2014 there was $87 million lost. Based on the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), so far in 2018 there has been 2,900 reports of dating and romance scams and 31.1% reported financial loss.
In 2015, Bryan Denny, a retired Army veteran received a message on LinkedIn from a woman who was angry at him for not coming to visit her after his deployment in Syria. Denny had no idea what she was talking about because he does not remember meeting a woman with that name. He researched his name on Facebook and came to find there were hundreds of fake profiles with his pictures. The woman had told her that the person she has been talking to has been using his pictures and made up a whole story about his life and got her to send him over $35,000 and then he disappeared, and she was wondering where he was (Task & Purpose).
MOTIVES OF ONLINE DATING SCAMMERS
There are many motives of online dating scammers, including revenge, thrill and profit
(Rege, 2009). Revenge can be anything from getting back at an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend or a friend because they hurt you and you want to get back at them. There are many MTV Catfish episodes that the catfish ends up being their ex-boyfriend/girlfriend or an ex-friend because the relationship ended poorly. Thrill is a strong motive because most scammers get a lot of joy out of hurting others and they get a thrill when they receive cash from the victims. Profit is a motive of online dating scams because all the scammer really wants out of the relationship is monetary gifts. They will say anything that will encourage the victim to send them things. Most scammers do not feel comfortable in their own skin and they do not like the way they look, so they decide to be someone they are not since it makes them feel better.
The victims in this situation stays in the relationship because they feel lonely and they like the attention they are getting. It is nice to receive compliments and talk to someone of interest at all times of the day, morning until night. It is comforting when it is easy to talk to someone about anything and everything going on in life. The scammers are taught how to be comforting and are able to say right things to lure victims in more. In Greek’s study, he said, “if the potential victim is really in love with the fraudster, they would be willing to help out financially in an emergency. Potential victims may believe that money is necessary to keep the relationship going since their new lover may eventually make their promised journey to be with them and they will live “happily ever after” in the end” (2018, p. 27).
SOCIOLOGICAL AND CRIMINOLOGICAL EXPLANATION FOR ONLINE DATING SCAMS
Monica Whitty (2013) developed a model called the Scammers Persuasive Model. This is a seven-stage model and details the process of the scammer. The first stage is to find love, an ‘ideal’ partner. This process can take time to find the perfect person. The second stage is to create the perfect, ideal profile. Most people describe this as an attractive person, somewhere between Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie (Whitty, 2013, p. 22). The stolen photos to create a fake profile for women are usually women in alluring outfits and model-like. For the stolen photos to create a profile for men, they are normally dressed in a military uniform, because that seems to attract women. The third stage is called the ‘grooming process’ which is the stage that the scammer starts to obtain the victims’ trust. This can be by giving out nice compliments, continuing to talk to them all day every day or even tell them hardships that they’ve had in their life. They say it is easier to grow a closer relationship to the victim when they are in another country, because the scammers will spend a lot of time talking to the victim, normally from the morning till night. In this stage, the scammer may ask for a gift and if the victim agrees, the next stage is called the sting. This is the fourth stage and the stage when the scammer will ask for money. The most common technique for this is called the foot-in-door, which is after the request for gifts is granted, they will ask for larger amounts of money for crisis help. They will come up with a severe crisis and tell the victim that they need the money as soon as possible. The fifth stage is the continuation of the scam and this is when the scammer will continue to ask for different amounts of money until the victim complies. The sixth stage of the model is sexual abuse, which only happens in a few of the cases. The scammer will ask the victim to perform sexual acts on video chat, and some victims said there was a black screen on the other end, so they did not even know who was on the other side. Sometimes this will be recorded and used as blackmail against the victim. The final stage is revictimization, which is when the victim returns back to the scam.
FUTURE FOR ONLINE DATING SCAMS
It does not seem like scammers are going to stop scamming people any time soon. The
solution of the problem can start with the victim not falling in the trap. Sometimes it is hard to give up getting affection and attention, but after watching shows like MTV’s Catfish and watching the news about scammers, the victims continue fall in the trap, even if they do not believe the person is real. In CBS News’ video Facebook’s Dating App Revs Up Romance Scams, it is explained Facebook will be coming out with a dating app in the next couple of months, and this app could be filled with catfishers. According to Trustify, a private investigator company, more than 85 percent of scams start on or involve Facebook and about half of the reported victims were aged 50 and over. Scammers target older people because they are less tech savvy and do not have the tools, knowledge and resources that younger people have to identify whether or not the person behind the screen is real. Some dating sites have included a built-in verification check for photos.
Conclusion
It is clear that online dating scams have caused a lot of damage to people’s bank accounts and hearts in many countries over the last few years. We know how big of a problem it is and it needs to stop. We now understand the acts that scammers perform, their motives and models that explain how they lure the victim into giving them money. There are many warning signs on the Internet about how to make sure not to fall into the trap. Online dating websites and apps have safety tips on how to date safely online, which specifically says to protect finances and never send money or financial information (Tinder, Dating Safely).