true crime

Why Valentine's Day is the riskiest time of year to look for love online.

This Valentine’s Day people around Australia will be opening their hearts to the possibility of new relationship, signing up in droves for online dating sites.

Sadly this influx of users also opens the door to scammers seeking to take advantage of those looking for love.

As Nick FitzGerald, Senior Research Fellow at IT security company ESET, noted, in 2015 2620 Australians lost close to $22.7 million to romance scams, $4.4 million of which was lost during the month of February alone.

An it’s on the rise. Last year that jumped to 4,100 people losing $25.5 million, according to the ACCC.

“Every year we see a spike in online dating activity around Valentine’s Day,” FitzGerald said. “Unfortunately, this rise in traffic gives cybercriminals extra incentive to deploy scams. People need to stay extra vigilant and pay attention to the warning signs.”

These scams can take the form of fake profiles used to ‘catfish’ trusting users, identity theft or even blackmail. The latter usually see the scammer persuade users to send them compromising images or information and then demand money not to release them online.

Of course, they’re not always that simple. Just last year a Western Australian woman was sucked into becoming a mule for stolen goods by a man she met online.

As ABC reported at the time, the victim said he sent her Valentine’s gifts and “said all the right things”. After a month, he then asked her to forward a package to Thailand for him; one turned into one a day – mostly expensive clothing and fashion accessories.

“She was trans-shipping goods delivered to her address, in her name, to Bangkok,” FitzGerald said. “This all started on an online dating site, and ended up with her, unwittingly, receiving goods ordered fraudulently.”

How to avoid falling victim.

To avoid falling victim to scams like this, FitzGerald offers online daters the following advice:

  • Be wary of profiles without pictures, details and interests. This is a clear warning of a fake profile.
  • Stick to reputable sites. Major sites have a reputation to protect and will therefore invest in keeping you safe.
  • Keep it on the site. Don’t be persuaded to take conversations on to social media or private messaging as the site can no longer protect you.
  • If you’re suspicious, Google the messages they sent you. Scammers tend to re-use the same ‘romantic’ messages, so if you find results from former victims you should start to worry.
  • Don’t be ashamed to ‘play detective’. Ask questions about them, especially where they work. If they never answer, or deflect, that should be a red flag. If you can’t find them on LinkedIn or Google then they probably aren’t real as it’s almost impossible not to leave traces online these days.
  • Don’t share ‘racy’ photos with strangers. Blackmail is a common dating scam, so do not send pictures of yourself, or appear on webcam, in a manner that you would be embarrassed to see published online.
  • Keep security software running. This will help mitigate potential damage from links and unwanted pop-ups containing malware.
  • Don’t send money, ever. You might think it sounds like a no-brainer, but it happens more thank you think. The average online dating fraud victim pays over US$13,000.

“The best tip for avoiding online dating scams is to follow your gut, if something doesn’t seem right, it’s probably not,” FitzGerald advised. “Sadly though, confirmation bias is probably hardest to recognise in matters of the heart.”