It’s a tale as old as time; a lonely widow or widower, vulnerable through grief and desperate for company and affection falls prey to a hard-hearted conman or conwoman.
Promising love, marriage, companionship, these predators will stop at nothing to get what they want – which is ultimately cold, hard cash.
Match has been named as one dating site to use with caution. A Utah woman in her eighties was targeted by a man who claimed to be everything she wanted – and there’s the warning sign.
Anyone who seems too good to be true, just might in fact be someone entirely different to what they’re claiming on their profile.
The woman, who’d joined Match after being widowed and then losing her best friend and roommate, was so smitten by the man’s sweet talk that she was persuaded to make two wire transfers to him totalling $130,000.
She reported him to authorities once she realised she’d been scammed.
It might be easy on the surface to judge those who fall for dating scams, but the fact is that grief and loneliness can conspire to make us all more vulnerable to abuse.
It should also be considered that some of those responsible for preying on the lonely are extremely good at what they do and appear to be genuinely interested in the victims.
A common tactic is for the fraudsters to ask to message the victim away from the dating app – this makes it easier for them to avoid detection.
If you’re considering online dating, ensure that you check out any interested parties carefully and never send money to anyone you meet online.
The Pandemic has isolated people who would usually have the company of friends from their local communities or church groups and ensured that some people don’t receive as many, if any, visitors in the home.
This leaves them vulnerable to falling for tall tales on dating apps.
Whilst most dating apps, Match included, do offer advice to those using the platform, it’s important for people to take extra care of themselves when dating online.
Match Group, which also owns Tinder and Hinge isn’t exactly well-known for putting the safety of its customers or its employees first.
After all, it was Tinder’s own CEO Sean Rad who was hauled up in court for his part in a sexual harassment suit which shone a not-too-flattering light on the culture within Tinder’s supposedly “frat-like” offices.
Rad was demoted though not removed entirely from Tinder’s executive team and he was soon embroiled in more controversy when he issued what some saw as a “veiled threat” to Vanity Fair journalist Nancy Jo Sales who had written a critical piece about Tinder and its part in promoting “hook-up” culture.
Rad did himself no favors when he later gave a “baffling” and even “creepy” interview to The Evening Standard in which he blabbed about how many women he’d slept with and about a supposedly infatuated “supermodel” who interestingly, he chose not to name.
Perhaps Match Group needs to scrutinise its own culture more carefully as it scrutinises the risks its users run whenever they use the app.
Hemant Kumar is a project manager at Tridindia with more than nine years of commendable experience in writing about LMS, translation, and IT. His unmatched talent and passion for digital marketing gave him the opportunity to work as a multi-tasking project manager at TridIndia’s sister company, Link Building Corp. Today, he contributes to the world by imparting knowledge on SEO, link building and internet marketing etc., that helps business owners grow their online business.
