Criminal Activity on Dating Sites

I was reading an article by Christopher T. Heun (InternetWeek) on the amount of fraud on dating sites. He quotes an industry analyst that approximately 10 percent of the profiles on any given site are fake.

Recently, I've seen victims duped into cashing fraudulent money orders and or cashier checks by someone that met in a chatroom or on a dating site. Dating sites are another place where fraudsters go to harvest victims.

In the article, Dan Larkin (Internet Crime Complaint Center) states "People are already going to [dating Web sites] in a somewhat vulnerable position and the bad guys play on that. The reality is, people either don't know they're a victim or don't want to report it."

Dating sites are often used to recruit people into cashing fraudulent instruments and reshipping scams. These involve fraudulent financial instruments, or merchandise purchased with them. They are then asked to ship the merchandise, or negotiate the instrument into cash and wire the money to the fraudster.

In both scenarios, once the transactions are determined to be fraudulent, the victim is often left responsible for the financial loss. Even worse, they might face criminal charges.

Of course, there are also the mail order bride scams that can be found on these sites. Sometimes these scams are also set up on sites created by the fraudsters themselves. Here is an excellent link with information on how to spot these scams:

http://www.dangersofinternetdating.com/mailorderb.htm

There are also a lot of sexual and violent crimes are initiated on the internet. The "Home Page" of the link above is a really good site for anyone, who desires to protect themselves, or someone they know from the dangers of dating on the internet.

http://dangersofinternetdating.com/

In the busy world of today, there are a lot of people using the internet to find companionship. Whenever something becomes popular, it seems to attract the criminal element. In the end, being aware and informed is probably the best defense against becoming a victim.