While dating services can be great, they can also be detrimental if you fall victim to a scam. Scams can happen from the site itself, or from its members. Here are a few things to watch for so you know what to avoid.
Spam
While this isn’t necessarily a scam, it can lead to scams. Before you sign up for a dating site or service, check their privacy policy to ensure your email address won’t be sold to third party vendors. To add an extra layer of protection use a throw away email address. This is an email address from a free provider that you use only for the dating sites. This way, if you are inundated with spam you can just delete the email account without losing important contact information.
Sending Money
This scam is all to common with online dating services. This isn’t necessarily perpetrated by the site itself, rather by members who set up fake profiles. It works by another member chatting with you and getting close to you. After you’ve exchanged a few emails they will give you some sob story. They have a relative in the hospital, have funeral expenses to cover, are stranded out of town. The story is designed to tug at your heart strings. Then they ask you to borrow a sum of money, with the promise to pay it right back. The problem is, you will probably never see that money again. Also never agree to cash a check or money order they send. This is another popular scam that gets many people. You will be asked to cash a check, then wire a portion of the money back to them. By the time the bank processes the check, it’s no good and you have to pay your bank back, but the scammer has already received the money.
