Writing for Information Today's LinkUp Digital, Reid Goldsborough details on online dating scam through Plenty of Fish (PoF). He also describes how he was able to find information about the scammer and the where "she" found the content to attempt to seduce him, based on research on the website Pigbusters.
Other resources that you could use if you were planning a fraud awareness program include:
Other resources that you could use if you were planning a fraud awareness program include:
- An FBI report on Online Dating and other Extortion Scams.
- Online, Is Dream Date a Scam? from the Wall Street Journal
- The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has provided a fact sheet, The Perils and Pitfalls of Online Dating: How to Protect Yourself
- Your local BBB may also have information about scams that were perpetrated locally, as this BBB reported on a scam pulled on a complainant from Nebraska.
- OnGuardOnline also has advice on how to report the scammer, though you should also report the fraudulent posting to the dating site that hosts it. This appears to be what happened in Goldsborough's anecdote, since he reports that the profile went missing on PoF, but by then they were communicating off the site. Good advice to check and make sure the profile is still available while you are flirting online.
According to this article from Fast Company, which quotes IC3, the total (reported) losses from romance scams was fifty million dollars in 2011, and women apparently made up the majority of the victims. With Valentine's Day approaching, this may be a timely subject to address.
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