Romance Scams: Fake Cupid

A few months ago Iriodalo Emmanuel Obhafuoso was exposed as a romance scammer when his victims compared messages of him asking them for money while pretending to suffer from a terminal disease. This case opened a larger case of romance scams and how victims fall for it.

What are romance scams? It’s pretty self explanatory, someone pretends to like you just so they can get something from you. This scam is commonplace and people fall for it all the time. 

Romance scammers typically create fake profiles to catfish potential victims, they usually impersonate attractive people so their victims can let their guard down and trust them. 

Their methods  vary, they could impersonate American military personnel because this inspires confidence and trust in their victims. Also,  military websites post soldiers without mentioning anything about their families and personal lives so scammers find them easier to use as bait to lure in potential victims. They could also post revealing pictures of someone else and trick their victims into believing that if they sent them money they would fulfill all their sexual fantasies. 

People who fall for this type of scams are typically older, lonely and sensitive . Older people are targeted more because they are likely to have assets and property that would be of value to a scammer. 

But romance scammers don’t always steal other people’s identities to carry out their scams, sometimes they come as they are and appeal to your sense of humanity by weaving elaborate tales of being helpless while professing love for you and making you feel comfortable talking to them like Odalo did to his victims. 

So how do you detect a romance scammer? Well if they’re coming on too strong when it’s only been a few days since you started talking that’s a red flag. If they’re telling you they need you to transfer any amount of money because there’s something wrong with their account, run. 

Romance scammers are not very clever and if you pay attention it’s not really hard to detect their tricks. If someone with a relatively new account hits you up and you notice there’s not much activity on that account, that’s a red flag. 

If their grammar is poor and they don’t have the  native accent of the country they claim to originate from, that’s a sign. 

If you have reason to suspect someone is not who they claim to be, listen to your gut and run. Do not give out information about your accounts to anyone over the internet. Always stay alert.