Online Dating :
Social media creates an opportunity for young women and men living in socially conservative non-western societies to be able to communicate and meet and engage in forbidden intimacies and forbidden behaviours.
You can be a highly intelligent person with a good job, but the strategies the dating fraudsters use are highly sophisticated, beware that there are so many pitfalls to online dating, it could be fake profiles, unclear motives, unbalanced emotional people, unclear past behaviour and mostly those are the people who are on the lookout for just sexual relationship and many times we have seen, they use these relations to extort money from you.
Most of the victims are middle-aged men and women from well-to-do upper-middle-class families who are well educated and have access to technology, the scammers are on the lookout for the rich, who are lonely or divorced or interested in same-sex relationships.
Some of the popularly used Dating Apps in India are Lamour, Tantan, Happn, Tinder, WHO, OkCupid, Woo Dating, Facat, Bumble, and Meetville.
Types of Dating Scams :
(a) Proposal turns extortion – Scammers calls and extort money on the pretext of having victim’s sex recordings.
(b) Pretty Woman is a Man – You get fooled by the fake profiles and stolen photos of attractive women, Scammers threaten to keep all conversations on social media, by tagging all your near and dear.
(c) Making Gay Man Pay – Indian Taboo against the same-sex relationship is taken as an advantage and we hear terrifying tales of rapes and extortion.
(d) I have your Sex Recording – Dating friends get on to online explicit conversations and acts and then later the scammer extorts money for having the sex recordings.
Apps based Dating Scams :
Note: The girls are recruited/trained by agencies and they are incentivised in a manner i.e. paid based on how much time they can extend their conversations with subscribers on the dating apps.
- Step 1: You download a Dating App from Play Store or App Store
- Step 2:
(a) You get Text messages from Girls and you can’t reply, You need to be a paid subscriber to unlock the text messaging chat feature. Messages you received are very generic and mostly are BOT managed texts
(b) You get voice messages from Girls and you can’t reply, You need to be a paid subscriber to unlock the voice chat feature. Messages you received are by BOT’s or pre-recorded voice messages.
(c) You get video messages from Girls and you can’t reply, You need to be a paid subscriber to unlock the video chat feature. Messages you received are by BOT’s or pre-recorded video messages. - Step 3: Victims pay for premium subscription, but again require payment to respond. These are usually bots or pre-recorded clips.
- Step 4: Victims keep paying to chat, unaware they’re interacting with scripted AI or paid agents.
Fake profiles or inconsistencies in information :
- Requests for money over dating site with good storytelling (e.g., visa processing, medical emergencies).
- Refusal to video chat or meet in public places.
- Excessive flattery or unrealistic compliments.
- Links sent from unknown sources may contain malware.
- Pressure to switch from the dating app to WhatsApp or Telegram.
- Inconsistencies between their dating profiles when compared to public social media profiles
- Interested in engaging in intimate activities online or someone is trying to flirt or come nude in a live session..
How to Safeguard Yourself :
- Never indulge in online chatting, dating, or get emotionally involved with people without verifying who they are and the truthfulness of their claims.
- Never send money or your personal details to online strangers or online social media friends.
- Never communicate outside the dating website or social media platform after only a few ‘ chats/conversations
- You can do a reverse image check on www.inages.google.com or www.tineye.com to check if the photo is claimed on social media profiles.
- No sharing of intimate pictures or videos online. Scammers are known to blackmail their targets using past shared pictures or videos of you that you don’t want others to see.
Reporting a Dating Fraud :
Register at https://cybercrime.gov.in/. You will be required to use register via OTP from a valid Indian number. Select the category “Report Crime related to Women or Children” (a) Upload the Screenshots of the conversation from Social Media & Messaging Platforms (b) Copy the URLs of the Social Media Channels (c) Screenshots/statements of financial transactions.
