I thought I met the perfect guy on a dating app but he scammed me out of hundreds of pounds – if it worked on me, it could happen to you
Dating scams, like all scams, follow a predictable pattern. Firstly images can be reverse searched to check that they haven’t been stolen from elsewhere. That’s the first red flag. These people present themselves as too good to be true – military, aid workers, engineers working abroad, that sort of thing. Second red flag. They try to get their victims off the dating site and onto WhatsApp as soon as possible. Third red flag. When the victim tries to make contact in person, they are away – abroad working or some such and try to avoid an actual date. Fourth red flag. Then they ask for money. This is the final movement in the 1812 overture if you have missed all the others.
A woman thought the single father and wealthy businessman she met online was her perfect match – but it turns out he was using her for a romance scam.
Speaking on This Morning, Claire Spencer revealed that back in 2021 she met ‘Jack’ on the dating app Plenty of Fish and was within three weeks being asked for £1,000.
The fraudster had pretended to be stranded in Cambodia – with his wallet stolen – and had become ‘aggressive’ when his victim was hesitant to offer any cash up.
Yup, textbook. So, no, any person with their wits about them won’t fall for it.
She admits that there were ‘a few red flags’ but also explained it was easy to be reassured.
Sigh…
Jack was also using an Italian model’s pictures to convince her – with the fairytale romance only shattering once a friend of hers had realised she’d seen him elsewhere.
Google images, TinEye, it’s easy enough. But as soon as they ask for money, that’s it. You have never met this person and they ask for cash, forget it. It really is that simple.
No sympathy. Scams like this and 419s have been publicised so often that you really have to be a fully qualified dimwit to fall for one.
I have a certain sympathy for people who get scammed like this.
They’re typically of mature years most likely been hurt before and are naturally reserved about meeting people in the normal way, desperately lonely at that time and feeling low desperate to find something meaningful again.
Its like the daughter who’s father was a violent thug who too often manages to find herself attracted to (or rather a magnet for) exactly the same type of thug and marries him only to find he beats the crap out of her too, history repeating itself.
When its all over and they’ve escaped, or in the case of the scammers been fleeced, they can see things clearly in the cold light of dawn, but in the heady emotional moment they simply arn’t thinking clearly, and for varous reasons are extremely vulnerable desperate to cling onto what they think they’ve found.
You might have guessed already i’ve seen myself how devastating the father/husband thug thing can be for the woman it happened to.
Standing outside one can see what’s happening, how many times have we seen those we know about to make a massive mistake, ie marry an arsehole, we know in our hearts that tears will follow sometimes down the line but you can’t bring yourself to destroy the happiness they feel, not as they’d listen and they’d probably turn on you if you did.
The eternal problem.
I think that dating apps are just the modern version of the minefield that we have always had to negotiate in order to find a life partner and soulmate. My wife and I were introduced by mutual friends who thought that we would be a good match. That was back in the nineties when the internet hadn’t quite taken off. They seem to have called it right, we have been together more than thirty years. My very tech savvy daughter connected with her soulmate via a dating app. There is no way that she would ever have found him the traditional way. If you know how to use them, dating apps allow you to play a much wider field. It is sad that desperate people are such easy targets for scammers. They always have been, it is just that technology has made them easier to Exploit. Technology makes everything easier, good or bad, that is the problem, technology is morally neutral.
I think of the internet as neither good or bad but as an adjuvant – something that facilitates peoples’ behaviour.
The big issue with the internet is that it can mask people from identification but that may also be a good thing in some cases.
The thing that amazes me is how people go public when they’ve been scammed. They are not the slightest bit embarrassed about it. There was a programme on BBC1 with Kym Marsh (yummy) who helps these gullible people and sometimes you end up shouting at the screen at their stupidity. One woman had been taken for thousands of £ and they proved it quite quickly and the victim said she had moved on and started sending money to someone else!!!
I sympathise more with older people getting scammed since it happened to my 82 year old mother. She had always been the strong independent type, totally grounded, practical and pragmatic. She was not the type of person I would expect to have fallen for such an unsophisticated and stupid scam. People sometimes start to lose their mental faculties as they get older and it happens very gradually so that you don’t notice it until something like that happens.
Some people might feel the need to go public as a warning to others. If the woman on the TV show went on to getting scammed in the same way again then I think that she is beyond help.