In this romance scam, the woman met a man via a social network in July of this year and exchanged messages with him over a long period of time. Over time, the unknown suspect, who posed as an American soldier deployed abroad, asked for money under a legend. The injured party recognized the fraud too late and paid the man several thousand euros. #

The police have started investigations.

A short chat or a nice email from a stranger – so-called love or romance scamming starts harmlessly. The scammers look for victims on online dating sites or social networks such as Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook and scour the member lists there. A short online invitation to chat serves as an initial contact for many people. In order to make themselves interesting to potential victims, romance scammers create unusual life stories - and they always leave a serious impression.

Scam men pose as engineers, architects, sociologists, designers in the oil industry, veterinarians, computer specialists and US soldiers.

In the photos on the romance scammer profile, female victims are presented with an attractive white person - but the images are stolen. And even if the “new guy” claims to live in America or in other European countries, he is probably based in West Africa. However, the victims don't notice this because these chat acquaintances speak perfect English or use expensive translation tools for their emails.

Scam women prefer to pose as nurses, doctors, orphanage employees, teachers, actresses and businesswomen of all kinds.

The women in the pictures on networks and dating sites are extremely attractive. But these images are also mostly stolen or photographed solely for scamming. This can be seen in photo series with similar poses and clothing. Many women pretend to be Russian. But they can also come from South America, Thailand, Africa or Europe. All scamm women also have a perfect command of the English language, and sometimes even the German language.

The police advise: As a general rule, you should not transfer money or respond to other demands from people you have never met or seen in person. There are a lot of scammers on the Internet in particular who want to make a lot of money off of the good faith of their fellow human beings. So always be suspicious of incredible offers, whether when looking for an apartment or a partner.

MIMIKAMA tips

“Love or romance scamming” usually follows the same or a similar pattern

  1. The perpetrators contact their victims on online dating sites or social networks. They use fake profiles to pretend to be someone. To do this, they use real photos and fake CVs.
  2. At the beginning of the contact, the perpetrator showers the future victim with compliments and expressions of love. He gives the victim increased attention for a longer period of time in order to build trust and create emotional dependence in the victim.
  3. After a certain time, the perpetrator uses the victim's previously acquired trust and asks for help in the form of financial donations. These are intended to serve a wide variety of scenarios, such as treating a child's illness or planning to emigrate to Germany and get to know each other in person.
  4. The victims then usually make multiple transfers of various amounts of money to the perpetrators until they realize that they have been deceived. Because of feelings of shame, victims often remain silent for a long time and only report the fraud late. The money is lost.

How can you protect yourself?

  • Talk to people close to you about your new online acquaintance.
  • Do your own research in advance using the information available to you on the Internet.
  • Never transfer any amounts of money or send personal information to anyone you have never met in person before.
  • If you have already become a victim of such fraud, contact a police station in your area immediately and break off contact with the perpetrators immediately!

Wirr has already written numerous articles on the subject of love and romance scamming. You can find these HERE .

source

Schwerin police station
Also read:
via Facebook Messenger: Love scammer robs woman of savings
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )