Looking to social media to find love? You’re far from alone if you do. In the United States alone, it is expected that 53.3 million people will be using online dating services by 2024. According to research from YouGov, 22 percent of global internet users say they use social media for dating and flirting.

Interestingly, this same YouGov survey found that individuals who use social media for dating are much more likely than the general population to say they make impulsive purchases, trust products recommended by influencers and don’t worry so much about their privacy when using the internet. In some cases, the percentage of social media flirters who agree with these statements are actually in the majority.

Unfortunately, this means that if you’re looking for love on social media, you have a pretty good risk of getting scammed. We’re not just talking about someone agreeing to meet up with you for a date and then ghosting you.

If you’re not careful, those seemingly too good to be true people who reach out to you on social media or a dating app could be trying to scam you out of your money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnOSjmOs4vw

Dating Scams: The Basics

According to the FTC, Americans lost roughly $547 million to 56,000 reported dating scams in 2021 alone, with the median individual losing $2,400. These scams all share the same basic premise: a cybercriminal creates a fake profile to get the attention of others on social media or dating apps.

They reach out to people online and enter exclusively online relationships that move quickly in an effort to gain trust. Once the scammer has gained their target’s trust, they ask for money and vanish as soon as they have received that money.

According to the FTC’s report, there are a few common trends that romance scammers use to trick people into believing their fake profiles are legitimate so they can get their money. One of the biggest red flags is that these online scammers always have a made-up background that makes it easy for them to have excuses for why they can’t meet in person.

This usually involves them being overseas, such as serving in the military, working as a doctor for an international organization or even working on an oil rig. Regardless of the claimed background, they will have a very attractive profile picture (usually stolen from somewhere else off the internet).

Scammers often send unsolicited messages to other social media or dating app users, usually after doing background research on any information that is already publicly available so they can pretend to share interests with their target. They then share intimate messages designed to gain trust — possibly even professing their love or asking to get married — eventually leading to the request for money.

Despite promises to see each other — or even speak over the phone or a video call — the creator of the fake profile always has an excuse as to why this can’t happen (usually related to issues like work or travel).

Scammers usually ask that money be sent via a wire transfer or gift cards. In some cases, they may even ask for login or account information for your banking or investment accounts.

“My mom gets countless messages online from men who try to woo her, yet many of them are illegitimate,” says Leonard Kim of AdvisorCheck. “One time, she asked me for money because a package was stuck in the mail somewhere. After doing a reverse image search on the wealthy looking man’s image of him at a construction scene, I discovered that he was using the image of a former prime minister in the United Kingdom. These scams do not only target our elderly. They also target people who are in their primes as well through dating schemes. Countless women have messaged me from dating apps asking me if I invested in crypto and wanted to teach me how to do it, and you can imagine where that leads as well.”  

What Kind of Dating Scams Could Cause You to Lose Your Money?

The FTC’s report highlights three main types of online romance scams that malicious individuals could use to part you from your hard-earned cash. These scams target both men and women, and while the individual details of each scamming incident may vary, they will typically fall into one of these categories.

1. Financial Crises

The “classic” romance scam involves the person who created the fake profile suddenly falling victim to some terrible tragedy. It could be a health crisis that involves the scammer or a “relative” experiencing a medical emergency with expensive bills. They might claim that political unrest in their country is keeping them from being able to access their own money. It could even involve a claim that they need help with travel expenses to come visit their target.

Regardless of the specifics, the goal of these stories is to tug at the heartstrings of the person the scammer is emotionally manipulating. Sometimes, an ongoing “crisis” could even result in requests for multiple payments to the scammer’s account.

2. The Need for Help Transferring Money or Goods

Another common scam involves a scammer telling their target that they are going to send money, jewelry, clothes or other goods as a gift. Naturally, the recipient would be excited to get these items from a person they’re “dating” online. But then a problem occurs …

The alleged gift gets “locked up in customs.” The scammer provides instructions on how to call a (fake) customs location to get the money or goods out of customs. Naturally, the fake customs location demands payment to release the items which don’t actually exist.

A variant of this involves sending a fake check to the target with instructions to then send money from their own account (usually with a story about this convoluted process being necessary for getting inheritance money or doing a business deal). The received check is fake and doesn’t clear, but the victim will have already sent their own money.

3. Investment Scams

Finally, many romance scammers will use their “relationships” to trick people into making poor investments. This is especially common with cryptocurrency investments. The scammer leads their targets to believe they are a successful investor, and will offer some investment advice over the course of their conversations.

The fraudulent advice often involves telling victims to send their money to a fake cryptocurrency or foreign exchange (where it will disappear entirely). Or it could involve having victims download a trading tool on their phone that directs them to invest in things that the scammer owns — allowing them to conduct a short sale and leave the victim to suffer the loss in value.

How to Protect Yourself In the Dating World

Ideally, you’ll be able to find someone with whom you can say “I do” and then manage your finances responsibly together. But when your first contact with someone occurs over the internet, you have to be careful — especially if the topic of money ever comes up.

The first rule of thumb is that if someone you’re talking to online always has excuses for why they can’t meet you in person — or even have a phone call or video call — they are probably a scammer. If they’re really interested in finding someone to date online, they wouldn’t go to such great lengths to avoid in-person contact. And if they really were too busy to meet up (as these scammers often claim), they wouldn’t have time to message you so frequently on social media.

Once again: if someone keeps breaking promises to meet or call, they’re most likely a scammer.

According to CNBC, there are a few additional ways you can take a step back to evaluate whether someone is a scammer. Start by running a reverse image search on their profile picture. If it’s a scam, the images are likely stolen from someone else’s account. The same fake images could even be used for multiple dating profiles.

You should also think critically about the person who has reached out to you. Someone with an alluring and mysterious life, or who seems “out of your league” based on previous profile matches and dating habits is also more likely to be a scammer.

Speaking to a friend or family member who you trust can also help you assess the situation more realistically. Because they aren’t emotionally involved in the “relationship,” they can provide unbiased feedback as to whether a potential scammer’s behavior seems suspicious.

Ultimately, you should never send money to someone that you don’t actually know and have never met in real life — no matter how attractive or persuasive they seem. Be mindful of how losing hundreds or thousands of dollars to a romance scammer could keep you from being able to reach your own goals like homeownership or traveling the world.

You’re Already Putting Your Heart On the Line (Don’t Risk Your Money, too)

Dating scams are not worth the financial headaches. When it comes to your money, invest in yourself and your financial future so you can secure your dreams that will bring you the most happiness. While love is important, you should make sure your money is going to the things you want to do or achieve.

To avoid heartbreak from a dating scam, trust your financial future to a professional financial advisor. A quality advisor can help you start planning and investing to turn your dream life into reality — with or without a significant other.

While choosing a financial advisor may not always feel like as big of a commitment as dating, it is still an extremely important decision that will have a profound impact on your financial accounts.

Fortunately, with AdvisorCheck’s Advisor Search, you don’t have to leave this to guesswork. You’ll be able to find comprehensive information on advisors in your area, with information such as their average portfolio size, disclosures, credentials and more so you can make the right pick. Make a free AdvisorCheck membership to get our financial resources delivered straight to your inbox so you can avoid all types of financial scams in the future. 

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Written by Lucas Miller, Entrepreneur Magazine Contributor

Fact checked by Billy Quirk

Reviewed by KJ Kim

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The information provided in this article was written by the research and analysis team at AdvisorCheck.com to help all consumers in their financial journeys, by providing the resources and the insights to help improve one’s financial health, make it through recessionary and inflationary periods of time, and save their earnings to use them towards building a secure financial future. 

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