The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation continue to warn Americans of online dating scams after noticing
a steady rise in the numbers of victims who fall for this extortion scheme.
However, they also noticed that many victims were tricked into unknowingly
participating in credit card fraud. These victims were wrongfully accused of
more serious offenses, while most of them ended up with huge debts and ruined
credit scores because of this. There are also recent scam complaints and Web
crime reports in BigScammers.Com about this.
Online dating fraud is basically an extortion scheme that's
designed to blackmail unsuspecting users of popular dating sites and apps to
pay considerable amounts of money. Some users also become victims of credit
card fraud after using their credit cards to pay the money that's demanded by
the scammer. Here's how this scam works:
- How Online Dating Scams Are Done
Fraudsters pose as legitimate users of dating sites and apps
where their target victims hang out. They act like they're just looking for
their ideal dates in these Internet dating platforms. They use enticing photos
and stolen details for their profiles, and send out compelling private messages
to lure unsuspecting users into responding to their messages. They then
steadily build rapport with the users who respond. These are all very different
tactics compared to the schemes that many fraudsters use to commit credit card fraud, but how does this become an extortion scheme from this point?
Well, as scammer builds trust with other users in these
dating sites and apps, they also try to convince their victims to engage in
intimate conversations. They do this to be able to record their voice chats and
take screenshots of their text chat logs. Since many fraudsters target married
middle-aged men and women for their online dating scams, they can then
blackmail them into paying a hefty sum of money. They do this by threatening to
directly send these recordings and screenshots to their spouses, children,
employers, relatives and friends, and to also publish these all over the
Internet. A lot of scammers demand payments to be sent through cash-only
remittance centers, but some say they accept credit cards, in an effort to also
commit credit card fraud and steal the account details of their victims. They
use these stolen credit cards for their other illegal activities online and
offline.
However, how are online dating scam victims tricked by
scammers to unknowingly participate in credit card fraud? Well, since
fraudsters think of different ways to exploit the vulnerabilities of their
target victims and to gain as much benefit as possible from them, a lot of
organized crime groups and solo scammers have created fake business opportunity
offers that they pitch to their online dating scam victims. Here's how it
works:
- How Online Dating Scam Victims Become Participants of Credit Card Fraud
Fraudsters try to convince their online dating scam victims
to partner up with them for the promise of huge profits with very little
effort. They ask them to register businesses, get online merchant accounts and
just manage the registration and tax-related paperwork of the newly registered
businesses. What a lot of victims don't know is that scammers just use the
online merchant accounts to commit credit card fraud. They do this by cashing
out stolen credit cards through these online merchant accounts.
Since newly registered businesses can only get online
merchant accounts when the registered owner of the business signs the account
application with his or her personal guarantee, victims end up with huge debts,
ruined credit scores and other legal complications that are caused by fraud
investigations. These happen after excessive chargebacks, disputes and claims
against credit card fraud are filed by the legitimate owners of the stolen
credit cards that were cashed out through the online merchant accounts.
Many victims would have been able to quickly recognize this
scheme as a scam and could have avoided participating in credit card fraud if
they knew these tactics beforehand. To prevent similar complications, you
should sign up at BigScammers.Com to receive instant email alerts whenever a
victim posts a new scam complaint or files a Web crime report in the
user-generated content repository of this online community.
