Types of Dating Scams

Nowadays, people meet online rather often, whether on an online dating site or some social media platform. It sounds like an excellent opportunity to find a loving partner without leaving your home comfort. However, sometimes it comes at a price of a scam. Get to know the most common dating scam types, and stay safe while searching for love online.

Romance Scams occur in online dating and can happen on any mainstream dating site, app, or even social media. Simply put, any platform that allows you to meet and communicate with people online can be a potential playground for romance scammers. 

A romance scammer is a person who uses the illusion of a romantic or loving relationship to manipulate and steal from the victim he found online. They aim to gain trust first and to build a romantic relationship. Eventually, by pretending to be victims, they ask for money. 

Meeting with an online scammer in real life is very rare unless you are a famous Tinder Swindler. They tend to live in developing countries and have no chance or money to travel and take their scam to another level. However, they still can sound compelling as they make up realistic stories about traveling or working abroad. 

Unfortunately, such scams are more common than you think. Reports of the Federal Trade Commission showed that romance scams hit a record in 2021, where people reported losses of $547 million.

The primary tip is not to borrow money to anyone you meet online. Even if you have been chatting with a person for a while. Even if the reason they ask for money sound deadly serious. If someone you just met online asks for financial support, this is already a red flag. 

You can read more on Romance Scams and how to avoid becoming a victim at the official FBI portal. 

While the definition of romance scams is well-acknowledged, only a few people know that many scammy dating sites aim to rip you while offering only illusions rather than real chances of meeting someone.

Scam dating sites aim to profit from people, often building the same romantic belief and loving relationships as Romance Scammers. However, here you deal with an entire company with a well-established structure, scamming its users more sophisticatedly.

Scammy dating sites will not ask you to send money to them, but they will make you pay for their shady dating services, whether it's a subscription or expensive messages they charge you. Of course, paying for the service is not necessarily a sign of a scam. However, scammy dating sites will not deliver what they are supposed to, real potential matches.

Scammy dating sites generate fake profiles to create a fiction of supposedly active dating sites with many members. They also employ chat agents who will chat on behalf of fake profiles. It helps to create an illusion of a conversation with an actual user. They make their site users pay for subscriptions or messages and profit from them while providing fake profiles, bot messages, or messages sent by chat agents. They often claim to provide an entertainment service in their Terms. However, at first look, such sites look like regular dating sites and can deceive any user looking for love online.

Three signs help you to recognize a scammy or fake dating site. 

Sign number 1. Scammy dating sites are mainly targeting men. Often they stand for casual dating concepts, promising one-night stands or secret love affairs for married people. Easy bite for horny men.

It's not much of a secret that there are not many women on mainstream dating sites and apps, so the chances of finding a woman looking for a quick encounter are slim. Having no options on popular dating apps forces men to look for alternatives that are often nothing more than just another dating scam. 

Sign number 2. It is costly. Scam dating sites will always ask for payment to access all features and unlimited messaging. Often they will ask you to pay before you can use any features at all. Be careful whether they ask you to buy credits or a subscription model. Read terms carefully before you put your credit card details, as it might be deceiving and not what you expect.

Sign number 3. Scam dating sites will create a great fiction of an attractive dating site with many active women profiles and often bombard its users with fake messages sent by the bot or the agent. In such a way, the scam dating site gives the newly registered member high hopes that many users are willing to talk and interact with him/her, so he/she would make a decision to purchase a paid subscription as soon as possible.

Simply put, if your gut feeling tells you it looks too good to be true, you are most likely right. Stay away.