Smartphones today offer users a host
of useful features and services. From making online payments to checking out
the directions to a newly launched restaurant in town, you can do a number of
things with the help of a simple net connection. In a similar way, dating sites
too have become very popular with the population these days since it allows
them to meet and interact with likeminded people. The dating sites also come
packed with all kinds of filters that enable people to really fine tune
searches based on personal preferences. Now there are pros and cons to features
like these on dating apps.
In terms of advantages, users are
able to scan and search for people whose tastes closely matches with that of
their own. For instance, if you music is your passion and you happen to be a
big fan of Bob Dylan, you can look for partners who have the same kind of
preference. Apart from that, you can also conduct searches in terms of
location, ethnicity, marital history and loads of other parameters.
The flip side here being that
having all these preferences could eventually come back to haunt you,. When you put your preferences out there for
every one to see, it makes it very easy for scammers to create a profile that
will end up being a perfect match to yours. For all you know, the scammer might
not even be the opposite sex but would have entered his gender as female or
male based on what ever you are looking for.
And scammers involved in online fraud are known to target middle aged people. There are some obvious reasons
for this. People who single late into their forties or became recently divorced
are known to feel lonely. This motivates a lot of people to try their luck with
online dating sites. People in this age bracket also tend to be well settled in
their jobs and will be willing to spend if their convinced it is for the right
reasons.
So the scammers behind the online
fraud, will start working to gain your trust. Rather than being conversational,
these people will come across as excellent listeners and will encourage you to
do most of the talking. Do not be fooled by this since scammers like these
usually tend to multitask with multiple would be victims. It greatly improves
their chance of making money rather than focusing on just one person at a
time.
The main component to this type
of online fraud is to build trust and the scammers will go about the process in
a very methodical manner. Once they feel trust is not issue any more, they will
start asking the person for monetary favors. For instance, the person could say
that his grandmother or father fells suddenly ill and that he needs a few
thousand dollars for an emergency surgery. Or he might promise to come and meet
you in your town and would ask you to send money to pay for the air fare. As a
rule of thumb, you should never send money to anybody whom you have just met
through the web.
One effective way to avoiding online fraud is
to do a small background check on the
person. This can be done by cross checking their identity on various social
media websites which includes LinkedIn, Facebook and other forums. Check to
ensure that these online accounts were not created recently and have been
around for a while. While these are not pool proof methods to detect the
possibility of online fraud, it does help to build trust.
