Online dating safety: say no to scams

Online dating safety: say no to scams
You live in the age of the latest technologies and almost all your life is happening online nowadays. It’s no wonder while people have a lot of work, duties, and responsibilities, and no time for their personal life. It is very easy to shop online, pay bills, and even date.

However, let’s not forget that online dating is related to a range of risks. Your online dating safety is crucial and you should always take care of it. Remember that no one can protect you but you. Use the following safety tips for online dating to find out what kind of risks you can face and how you can overcome them successfully.

Online dating safety tips

Before you start using online dating, you should study this field well. Just like any other area of our life, it is full of various challenges and pitfalls. On your way to happiness, you can face a lot of problems and not lose hope and faith, it is necessary to be able to spot these problems.

Spotting a scammer isn’t easy. Remember that they are very talented people having great psychological skills who can approach any person. Regardless of how proficient and experienced you are, you can easily get trapped.

To avoid this, check the rules for online dating safety and always stick to them. Keep in mind scammers and gold-diggers never sleep and invent new and new schemes for reaching their goals. You must always be one step ahead of them.

Check the reputation of your dating site

Of course, even the best dating services may not spot a scammer sometimes. However, the best ones do protect their customers and have clear and helpful anti-scam policies. It is very easy to check the reputation of a website.

First of all, you can easily check their domain with a special free service online and see when exactly a site was created. If they claim to operate for many years and you see their domain is just one year old, it’s fraud already. You should not trust such a service.

You can also check the reviews of real users online. Check such services as Trustpilot or Sitejabber, and other review services. If a site has been operating for a while, it must gain a certain reputation. Otherwise, it is weird if after many years of successful work none of the customers left a review.

Keep in mind that honest and good services ask their customers to leave reviews after receiving their services. Just look for them. Your online dating safety depends on the reputation of the site and you shouldn’t neglect to do a little investigation. Moreover, when you are sure of the site, you can be sure of their payment options and that your personal information will not be disclosed to anyone.

Always ask for more photos and videos

Let’s say you have picked a good service after checking their reputation. By the way, it would be also good to test customer support. A reputable service always takes care of its customers and replies to their messages promptly. You must be concerned if you never hear from customer service and wonder what will happen if you have any issues.

If you started communicating with someone, don’t trust profile photos. They might be professional, photoshopped, and even not real at all. Ask for her photos in your correspondence. Not for photoshopped ones but normal everyday pictures. It would be very good to ask for at least one video call.

The truth is you might be spending thousands of dollars on communication via messages and never see this person on video. If the site has a webcam chat, pay attention to her behavior on camera. Very often, such video streaming is pre-written. Ask her to do something specific, for example, wave her hand, etc.

If your requests are ignored, you might be paying for pre-written streaming right now. Just be careful and pay attention to the red flags. The most popular red flags are as follows.

She refuses to have a video call

If you communicate for some time already and have never seen each other, it’s time to request a video call. Normally, people are eager to see each other on Skype or any other video messenger. You may not look like in your profile photos at all, may be overweight, or older than in the pictures. It is crucial to see how you both look while you may not like each other.

Of course, everyone is busy, has jobs, children, obligations, etc. and not everyone has time to communicate every day. However, it cannot last forever. If your date refuses to have a video call all the time and makes new excuses, you must be concerned.

It may mean that your dating safety is in danger because the person behind her profile photos is not who she wants to seem. The person in the photos may not even know that someone is using her photos for online communication, etc. There are lots of options but the fact that she doesn’t want a video call says this is a scam!

No wish to exchange contacts

You cannot communicate on the site forever and sooner or later, if everything goes well, you both would like to go further and have direct contacts with one another. Of course, a normal woman will not want to do it soon because she is also cautious and wants to make sure to get to know more about you.

However, if you communicate for months or even years on a dating site and she refuses to give you her contacts, something is wrong. She might be married, have a boyfriend, or simply receive payment from the site for communicating with you and other men. This must warn you.

By the way, one of the most beloved schemes of scammers on international dating sites that threaten your online dating safety is that they cannot exchange contacts because they have a very old phone that doesn’t support messengers, no internet at home, or no laptop to communicate, etc.

If you decided to date online and your safety is important for you, you should realize that we live in times when everyone has a smartphone and internet.

No matter where she comes from, a modern young woman who managed to join an online dating site has enough means of communication and you will be surprised to know that her phone is much better and newer than yours. Thus, when you hear such stories, know that she is trying to scam you and just ask for money for her new phone.

More online dating safety tips

These were the most common red flags that must warn everyone who faces them. If your inner voice tells something is wrong here, you must listen to it. Of course, there is no need to suspect each woman if she has some problems and cannot meet you or have a video call, but you must still be cautious and don’t believe everything they say.

Below, you will find some more tips that will help you keep your online dating safe. Pay attention to what is written and who knows, you may already recognize yourself and the situations you had in the past. If you already were trapped, now you know that you were scammed and can avoid the same things again in the future.

Never send money for passports, visas, and tickets

This will be one of the most important online dating safety tips because this scheme is one of the most popular ones in the world of scams. Let’s say, you have been communicating with someone for a while and you were going to come and meet her in her country.

However, she insists on coming to your country. Here is a problem though — she doesn’t have a foreign passport and needs a visa and tickets. Of course, you offer to help as a gentleman. She receives money, is making a passport, then applies for a visa and needs more money. Then she finally has her dream visa and needs money to buy tickets.

After receiving all the money, she will never come to your country. Here is a tip — if you want to meet, always book tickets on your own and request her passport for it. Almost all women have foreign passports nowadays and if not, their cost isn’t more than twenty dollars.

Never send money to a woman you have never seen

Scammers often want to make you feel sorry for them by telling you various sad stories. For example, she was ripped off, her mother is in the hospital, her dog needs urgent help, she took a loan and lost her job and has no money to pay, etc.

Their fantasies know no borders. If you have never met this woman in person and she has such stories every day, don’t even think to send her money. This is just her way to earn money from people who trust them and hope to marry them one day.

Take care of your online dating safety and use these tips to protect yourself from scams. Although online dating gives you much excitement and fresh emotions, never turn off the rational part of mind. Try not to be dazzled by feelings and always analyze the way your relationship is developing from a rational standpoint.