People are in need of love. It is a basic necessity.
However, this basic need is being tainted by unscrupulous individuals trying to scam people for money with promises of love and companionship.
Now that Valentines day has is in the air, several countries have posted warnings about the growth of online scams cheating lonely people for their hard earned savings.
Take Australia as an example. People aged over 45 are more likely to be duped into this. They say that romance related scams cost Australians more money than any form of cheating as per the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
People looking for love are often caught in this complex web of lies and deceit. The scammers are becoming more and more manipulative that and does a lot of things to lure them hook line and sinker.
People who try to look for love on Valentine’s day online might want to slow down and think about it a second time. They are capitalizing on the hope of finding love on this special day and a lot of people ignore the warning signs.
It all begins by creating a profile that is very believable and often times steal the identities of real, trustworthy people.
Online, they seem to be perfect. Too good to be true probably. The victims normally skips the basic part of doing research to see if they are the real deal.
In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian and Singapore police said 27 suspects – including 11 Nigerians, whose country is notorious for offshore financial swindles — were arrested in a joint operation against a syndicate preying on people seeking partners.
They cheated 108 people in the neighboring countries out of about 21.6 million ringgit ($4.9 million) in 2016, authorities said in the Malaysian capital.
Evidence seized in the operation – including computers, mobile phones and automatic teller cards – was presented at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Acryl Sani, director of Malaysia’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department, said the victims were from both sexes, with 43 from Singapore and 65 from Malaysia, and included elderly people.
These syndicates operate all over the world, not just Malaysia and Australia.
For example suspects found guilty of cheating in Malaysia could be jailed for up to 20 years.
They guys that are involved with the syndicate running the romance scam capitalize and prey on emotions. Specially the lonely ones which are sometimes desperate are satisfied with text messaging. These scammers avoids talking over the phone, do a face-to-face chat and strictly uses text messaging and pure chat only.
David Chew, director of Singapore’s Commercial Affairs Department, said online scams are increasingly complex and transnational in nature.
So for those hopeless romantics out there, be careful when trying to look for love online.
