How to Protect Yourself from Online Scams
The internet today is full of dating sites and communication services that let you get in touch with strangers and get to know them. By championing sharing and multicultural diversity, these platforms allow their users to grow closer and, in some cases, to find love. Unfortunately, they have also opened the door to bad-faith users who don’t hesitate to use them to bait and trap people.
Here, we offer a look at the most common online scams and various methods to avoid these traps.
Romance scams
These are among the most widespread today. Most often characterized by identity theft, they’ve grown in countries like Ivory Coast, where the perpetrators are nicknamed “brouteurs” (literally “grazers”). This name refers both to their illicit activity and to their desire to make easy money, like sheep nonchalantly grazing the grass. Romance scams essentially exploit your psychological weaknesses to dangle the promise of a love life full of passion.
A deceptive approach
You’re usually contacted by an account created from scratch on dating sites or via social media. The idea is to put you at ease so as to make you vulnerable. Every means is used so that no suspicion sets in. That can range from photos illustrating your sweetheart’s daily life to long nighttime conversations.
Even if this doesn’t alarm you, there are some unmistakable signs. At some point, you’ll surely want to see the person on the other end. What follows is a string of excuses, each less believable than the last, to avoid set meetings. It’s one of the signs you may be the victim of a romance scam.
Scenarios that play on empathy
That alone may not be enough to confirm your suspicions. When, without having met your contact, sums of money are requested for various reasons, you have to question things. The fake excuses are many: sick parents, work problems, or sudden trips. Every excuse is used to arouse empathy and get you to accept the requests. With feelings clouding things, you often lack objectivity and are guided by the prospect of helping out your “soulmate.”
Webcam blackmail
To push things further, some scammers urge you to reveal your intimacy to put you in compromising situations. Whether through naughty webcam games or photo exchanges, anything goes to obtain undeniable leverage. You’re then demanded ransoms to prevent your photos and videos from being shared online. This phenomenon, called “sextortion,” is one of the most vicious forms of romance scam. Once you reach this point, it’s often very hard to get out without the help of security professionals.
What to do in the face of these attacks?
Prefer channels like Mad2Moi, the safest dating app, to avoid this kind of situation. Unlike most dating platforms, we have security protocols in place to limit the risks. Our platform is run by a team using the latest technologies to ensure your safety. Beyond guaranteeing the security of your data and yourself, Mad2Moi is an app that filters your matches. A smart algorithm sorts profiles to find the people most likely to suit you.
Also, when dealing with a “brouteur,” you can spot it in their writing. Certain language habits die hard and can give you clues about your contact’s origins. Another method is to verify the authenticity of the profile picture. To do this, save it and paste it into your browser. If the same photo comes up in several different results, it’s probably a stolen or fabricated identity.
At this stage, take time to think about your contact’s requests before agreeing to them. That means not sharing any banking information, photos, or intimate videos with a person you have no offline relationship with. As you can see from this report on the brouteurs of Africa, the phenomenon is fairly widespread and extends to various countries like Benin or Nigeria. Putting some limits on your online activity isn’t excessive.
The Nigerian scam
The Nigerian scam, also called “419 fraud” in reference to Nigeria’s Penal Code, appeared there in the 1970s. Now very widespread in that country and in others in West Africa, the Nigerian scam has surged with the development of the internet. Based mainly on ways to stir empathy in victims, it’s a particularly nasty kind of romance scam.
Carefully prepared scenarios
Through this fraud, scammers try by every means to inspire pity or set up a sense of need to push you to “come to their aid.” To do this, several profiles are crafted on dating sites. One of the most common is the wealthy heir who invents a wildly improbable story to justify having to transfer his fortune to safeguard it. To better bait you, he promises you a share of the funds once the requested transfer has been carried out.
The deception lies in the fact that you have to cover many fees for the transfer to go through. Of course, these are entirely made up. That’s how you get gradually fleeced. To push the scam further, these crooks ask you to provide several documents. This helps on one hand to make the scam more credible and on the other to give them tools for their next victims.
To boost their efficiency, the scammers have crafted the profile of the white woman living in Africa and possessing a considerable fortune. She gets in touch with you (through fake photos or a fake cam) and tells you over the course of your exchanges about her wish to transfer part of her fortune to a humanitarian organization. The use of a female character and a noble cause is one of the means meant to lower your guard so as to better scam you.
Distrust above all
The Nigerian scam most often happens via frequent emails or exchanges on dating sites. Keep in mind that even if your contact’s story sometimes seems plausible, that’s not enough. The best way to protect yourself is to be wary of absolutely every piece of information passed on by people you don’t know.
If on top of that you can’t meet your contact, it’s better to cut off all communication with them. You can also pay attention to certain telltale details. Absurd spelling and grammar mistakes in messages are sometimes signs to consider.
Another simple way to protect yourself is to pay attention to email addresses. Indeed, in the case of a Nigerian scam where the contact is made by email, the scammers make sure the sender address differs from the one actually used. They sometimes also use a VPN. However, when you use the “reply to email” function, your messaging service should generally display the real email address. In any case, if the sender address and the reply address differ, there’s no longer any reason to continue exchanges with your contact.
The charity scam
For the brouteurs or the “gaymans” of Benin, every occasion is good for taking advantage of you. So during disaster and natural-catastrophe periods, they get busy finding new ways to trap you. One of the most common is the charity scam. This trickery exploits people’s tendency to want to help others in the face of major catastrophes.
To do this, the scammers create fake sites meant to serve as fundraising supports for the affected community. The site’s link is paired with a carefully written email designed to touch your sensitivity. When you fall into the trap, you’ll willingly give away your money, which sadly will never reach the victims.
This kind of scam generally lets the crooks pull in impressive sums of money. Even if you have the will to help, stay vigilant. If you receive one of these links by email, don’t rush to donate. Open the site in question via Google (not via the email) by typing its name and run a few checks.
If the site belongs to a charitable organization, the least it should be is secure. So just make sure that before the link’s name you see “HTTPS” preceded by a lock icon (usually a padlock). If not, avoid at all costs entering your banking details to make a donation.
Next, when the site really is legitimate and belongs to a charitable organization, it’s not limited to a single page dedicated to donations. Pay attention to the details. A real charitable organization will add a page to its site for the donation in question. That implies that from that page you should be able to access various pieces of information about the organization. Its founding, its mission, its actions, and its legal notices. When on the contrary you only have a single page asking only for your donation, abstention is the best protection.
What the community is saying