True love or cheating? Here's how to find out!

Romance or love scammers can be found wherever it is very easy to make contact. This could be a dating or partner exchange. This can be social media like Facebook or Instagram, but also various messaging tools, messengers or chat platforms.

What fraudsters have in common is that they build trust over a longer period of time. They quickly talk about their great love, tell details about their everyday life and also want to know everything possible about the other person. However, a real meeting rarely takes place. Instead, after a while, they ask for money. The request for money transfers is usually accompanied by emotional stories. A death in the family, a serious illness or an accident, the sudden loss of a job, unpaid hotel bills or problems with the authorities can be reasons why the fraudsters suddenly have a need for money. But it could also be that they need the money to fly from abroad to the victims in order to finally get to know them.

Many do what is asked of them because they are already emotionally dependent and suppress reality. At the beginning it may even happen that the money is paid back, but this only serves to build trust. If you pay later, promised repayments will not be made.

So that you can expose love fraudsters yourself, we will introduce you to some helpful tricks that you can use to find out more about your supposed new love.

The first thing you should do is take a close look at the person's profile. The following points can be helpful:

• Login time: Find out how long the person has been logged in on the respective platform. Often fraudsters have not been active on a platform for very long. After scammers have been exposed, they have to recreate their profiles again and again.
• Friends and followers: You should also look at your counterpart's friends and followers on Facebook, Instagram & Co: Does the person only have a few friends or only friends of one gender? Do followers respond to posts and posts? Is there any interaction with other profiles at all? All of these can be indications that the profile is only used to make contacts.
• Check names: Search on Google for the profile name or the name that was given to you. Make sure that the search results match what the other person told you, as romance scammers often use the identity of someone else who exists steal a person. You can also search for the names together with the terms “scam” or “scammer” – some scammers are already known and their names can be found on the Internet.
• Search for additional details: You can also search for other details that you know to verify that the information you provided is correct. For example, you can search for addresses where you live or work on Google Maps to find out whether there is an office or apartment at that address.

You will usually find pictures of the person in the profile. Additional images are often sent during the course of communication. If there is only one photo, ask for additional photos.

As with searching the name before, you can also check the images. Google image search will help you with this. Follow these five simple steps:

1. Step: Before you start searching, save the profile pictures or the sent pictures on your hard drive. But you can also copy the URL of the image. To do this, right-click on the image and click on “Copy image address” or (depending on your browser) on “Copy graphic address”.
2. Step: Go to images.google.com!
3. Step: Click on the camera icon in the search bar.
4. Step: Here you can either paste the copied URL (right-click and “Paste”) or upload the image from your hard drive.
5. Step: After clicking on “Image search”, you will see the results. Now check where else the image appears and whether the image appears with the same name or perhaps comes from someone else.

When it comes to actual communication with your counterpart, there are some abnormalities that can be alarm signals:

• Unexpected contact: Especially on social media, it is unusual for an unknown person to write to you. Therefore, you should consider whether it makes sense for this person to write to you. Can someone you're not friends with even see your pictures and posts? If not, it seems very arbitrary who gets written to.
• Quick expressions of love: Romance scammers usually get emotional very quickly. They use terms like “Honey”, “Darling” or “my love” and often confirm in the first messages how in love they are and that they want a serious relationship.
• Bad German or English: Many scammers write in English, some also in German. Messages in German often seem as if they were created with a translation program and have many errors.
• Constant excuses: Be skeptical if your supposed dream partner constantly makes excuses. For example, why doesn't the person want to make a video call? Could it actually be that the webcam just broke? Why does the person keep promising meetings and visits only to cancel them at short notice?
• Constant availability: A warning signal can also be if the person you are talking to practically always has time and is constantly available for virtual conversations. Many contact you several times a day via different channels. This may be because there are several people behind the profile who alternate in time.

Some romance scammers spend a lot of time creating their profile. Therefore, the tips mentioned are only to be understood as tips to help you expose the fraudsters. But remember that the tips do not have to apply to all fraudsters.

However, you should break off contact at the latest when the conversation turns to financial difficulties and you are asked for financial help. Victims are often pressured into signing documents, forwarding parcels or sending private documents. These demands are usually accompanied by emotional stories, which, however, are not true. Therefore, do not respond to such demands!

If you have fallen victim to this scam, we recommend that you break off all contact, delete and block the fake profile on the various communication channels. If financial damage has already occurred, you should immediately file a criminal complaint. In the article If you've fallen for a scammer... you'll get tips on what to do next.

Source: Watchlist Internet

Item image: Shutterstock / By tartanparty