GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – As if trying to get a date around Valentine’s Day wasn’t difficult enough, new cryptocurrency scams are using popular dating sites like Tinder to target potential victims.
“They’re trying to get them to pay them in Bitcoin, into a company that may or may not exist,” said Susan Bach of the Better Business Bureau. “You should never send money or personal information to someone that you’ve never met in person. That’s one way to avoid this kind of investment scam.”
Picture this: You swipe right on a beautiful man or woman. You’re instant matches. But they quickly try to move the conversation to another medium.
“The scammer also wants you to communicate outside of the dating app. They’re in a hurry to get you on an insecure chat app, because they know that people are monitoring those dating websites,” Bach told WTAQ News. “So if someone seems to be in a hurry to get you to communicate off of that dating app, that is also a red flag.”
Once on the texting app, the scammer starts talking about how they have a family member who is a successful cryptocurrency investor. This person has inside trading information that could make you rich! Your new love interest encourages you to take advantage of this “exclusive opportunity.” All you need to do is deposit money in a cryptocurrency trading platform. But once you make a deposit, the money is gone forever. Your new “love” blocks you on all platforms and stops replying to your messages.
So how can you identify someone as a phony before they attempt to take advantage of you?
“A scammer is gonna have a hard time keeping multiple profiles straight, and they might stumble over remembering some details. So ask some specific questions,” Bach said. “Do some research on the photo that they’re using and see if it’s been used elsewhere. They’ve been known to steal off of other websites, Facebook profiles, pictures from models.”
Conduct a reverse image lookup using a website like tineye.com or images.google.com to see if the photos on a profile are stolen from somewhere else. Search online for a profile name, email, or phone number to see what adds up and what doesn’t. Report what you find to the dating app.
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