14 DAY TRIAL // An alert from the Australian Government informs that about one third of all the online scams in 2014 were related to dating and romantic relationships.
The financial loss associated with this type of fraud is $27.9 / €25 million out of the total of $82 / €74 million recorded by online scams last year.
Total losses incurred by victims amount to millions of dollars
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) received complaints from 2,497 people regarding dating and romance scams, 373 of them incurring losses greater than $10,000 / €9,000.
The total number of individuals who have been tricked into transferring money to the scammer has been established at 1,032. However, both the number of persons who suffered financial consequences and the amount of money are likely to be much higher than the figures presented in the report.
Online romance scams may appear an easy problem to deal with, but the damage they can deal is significant. According to statistics from the US Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), 40-year-old women and older were the main victims of the dating fraud, losing more than $68 / €61.2 million in 2014.
Operation is simple, may take months to collect
The scheme is quite simple, with a scammer skilled in social engineering tactics creating a fake profile and making contact with the victim; after gaining their trust, the victim is asked for money.
The demand is masked as a totally understandable need, with reasons ranging from emergency medical intervention to buying airplane tickets to visit the victim. Furthermore, the financial requests occur over a period of months after the initial contact.
Usually, the operations are conducted on online dating websites, but recently the crooks have extended their business on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Mobile apps like Tinder are also used to carry out scams.