Digital Rescue Rangers has been providing successful strategies and approaches in increasing web traffic, generating meaningful content, and attracting new business opportunities to clients all over the world for years now. Today, we want to extend our services and digital footprints to everyone.

Our new service, Online Detective, is a free investigative service that aims to help social media and online dating app users stay away from online dating scams. We provide online services to our usual clients to optimize their websites through Google search results, so we spend most of our time navigating the Internet. One alarming problem we encountered through our searches is the rise of online scams.

As a digital marketing agency, we want to make the digital world a safer place for individuals and professionals. Our mission starts with the launch of Online Detective. Know how Digital Rescue Rangers discovered the severity of global online dating scams, and help us combat them to promote safe online spaces for you and your loved ones.

Top Online Dating Scams Used by Criminals

Based on global records of online dating scams, it seems like scammers, hackers, and other cybercriminals have common denominators. They use the same types of scams but with varying tactics to dupe users. Here are some of the most common online dating scams today:

Romance scam

Romance scams involve a story where a certain wealthy individual overseas needs an advance fee to facilitate the transfer of a large sum of money. Scammers trick strangers or their ‘dates’ to give them the advance fee in exchange for a hefty commission.

Extortion

Many victims fall for extortion after using online dating apps and websites. Experienced scammers today are patient. They mostly spend a lot of time gaining the trust of their victims, luring them into sending sensitive photographs and sharing intimate conversations. Afterward, the scammers blackmail their victims by demanding money to delete the private content.

Money Request Schemes

Some online dating scams are done through continuous manipulation of victims. Scammers strike short-term and long-term relationships with their victims to trick them into sending money. Some scammers ask their victims to help them pay for travel expenses for them to meet face-to-face, while others go as far as asking the victims to pay for their medical expenses.

Most of these online dating scams work because of the distance between the scammers and the vulnerable victims. Scammers usually target well-researched victims overseas, so any money involved in the scams would be difficult to trace in wire transfers.

Self-Preventive Measures to Avoid Online Dating Scams

Instead of finding true love, users of online dating apps and sites may find scammers, hackers, and cybercriminals. Online dating platforms are free to use, so these criminals are free to roam around and look for prey.

If you’re one of the many singles in the world looking for true love online, here are the best preventive measures to avoid falling prey to online dating scams. Remember that your personal safety should be your first priority.

Verify Personal Information

Some online dating sites and apps only provide limited information to their users. This feature is a double-edged sword as while it protects users from identity theft and other cybercrimes; it also gives scammers freedom to create fake profiles. To verify the personal information of your match, you can cross-check information through research and social media background checks.

Shield Your Online Presence

Don’t give too much information about yourself to strangers, especially if you’ve only known each other for days. Evaluate the information you have online, and make sure that your profile won’t compromise your safety.

Don’t Ever Send Money

Money talk is one of the red flags in online dating. Immediately turn down your online date if he or she starts asking for money. Set aside your personal feelings and the relationship you’ve built. Don’t ever send them money, regardless of what they will tell you.

Digital Rescue Rangers’ FREE Online Detective

It’s challenging to detect scammers and avoid online dating scams; that’s why these scams become successful in the first place. We, at Digital Rescue Rangers, are aware of the gravity and consequences of these online scams. We hear stories from friends and loved ones about potential scammers. As such, we took the liberty to help promote safe online spaces for our clients and everyone on the Internet.

Our new service, Online Detective, is free to use by everyone. The purpose of the service is to prevent people from falling prey to dating scams by providing free background or identity checks, online self-defense tips, and transparent reports.

Here’s how Online Detective works

“Is this person real?”, online dating users often ask themselves. Online Detective can help you identify if your potential date is a real person or not. We can catch scammers, cybercriminals, and catfishes through thorough identity checks. Our identity verification and authentication approaches allow us to go through personal information, photographs, and contact details depending on what’s publicly available on the web.

Put Digital Rescue Rangers’ Online Detective to the test and protect yourself! Our Online Detective service is free. You can send your requests to identitycheck@digitalrescuerangers.com, and wait for our researchers to reach out to you and address your concerns.

Report scams to local authorities

Digital Rescue Rangers’ Online Detective and our previously-mentioned tips to avoid online dating scams are effective preventive measures. However, if you or your loved ones have already fallen victim to an online dating scam, it’s best to file a complaint to local authorities as soon as possible.