16. Protection Against Love Scammers and Romance Fraudsters | Consonance (Gleichklang)

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Protection against Love Scammers, Romance Fraud, and Sexual Assault | Consonance (Gleichklang)

There are unpleasant topics that must not be omitted from a book on online partner search:

• Love scammers are fraudsters who operate specifically through online dating platforms and social networks. Their goal is financial gain. To this end, they try to generate positive feelings in their target in order to exploit them afterward.

• Sexual assault is a general social problem that also occurs in online dating. Women and non‑binary persons are predominantly affected, but men can also be affected.

It is therefore important to take effective strategies to protect yourself from love scammers and sexual assault during online partner search.

Romance Fraudsters on the Internet

As said, love scammers are fraudsters who operate specifically through online dating platforms and social networks. Their goal is to enrich themselves financially. To this end, they try to generate positive feelings in their target in order to exploit them afterward. In most cases, there is never a direct encounter; communication remains at the online level, phone calls are made, and video conversations rarely take place. Video conversations are rare because they often operate with fake images.

Once an emotional connection has been established, they tell of emergencies that supposedly prevent a direct meeting. Usually, the persons concerned are supposedly (and, incidentally, also often actually) abroad, and a series of complications allegedly arises that requires financial support.

They usually start with relatively small requests for financial support, which then escalate until the victims have no more funds or recognize the fraud and drop out. Victims are also occasionally used for money laundering (transferring funds to be laundered onto their own account) or as drug couriers.

Behind love‑scammer profiles, as a rule, there are not individuals but several persons or an organization. Typically, fake photos are used and a fictitious profile is created that appeals to romantic longings.

Love scammers repeatedly infiltrate dating portals to get to new victims. They try to exploit loneliness and the need for love.

Often, profiles of love scammers are characterized by a text written in English or broken German, and if the dating platform allows it, they immediately point to an email address, Facebook, or a messenger service in the free text. They do this because they expect their profile to be deleted quickly. So they want to create quick contact options.

Usually, love scammers take the initiative themselves and contact their potential victims, typically writing to all possible candidates at once. They usually suggest moving communication immediately to the mentioned email address, Facebook, or a messenger service. If a victim agrees, they will soon receive romantic texts and declarations of love that appeal to the longings of many people searching for a partner.

However, there are now also more sophisticated methods with more professional texts. Because dating platforms search for conspicuous communication patterns, some love scammers only contact a few persons or even wait until they are contacted themselves. In this case, they also engage in communication within the dating platform for longer so as not to be detected too quickly.

Often the contact eventually moves to the phone level, which then usually takes place in English. Love scammers make sure to recognize and exploit the longings of the other person. They give hope for true love and a lasting relationship, engage in love‑bombing with love messages, and thus create a feeling of being in love in the victims. The speed and intensity with which such an apparent love arises are enormous.

Suggestions for personal encounters are often initially met with evasive responses. Obstacles are named and appointments are postponed several times. A current stay abroad with financial, health, or legal problems is almost always cited as the reason. To dispel mistrust, forged copies of identification documents may be sent. Contact addresses of alleged lawyers may also be given, behind which the criminal organization or friends of the perpetrator are actually hiding.

If you get into such a situation and do not want to believe that you are dealing with love scammers, the urgent advice is to contact the embassy of the person’s alleged country of origin in their alleged country of stay, rather than continuing to communicate with any unidentifiable persons. However, it is more sensible to break off contact immediately, which unfortunately many do not want to do.

Sooner or later, all love scammers will make a financial demand. Typically, they describe a special life situation that suddenly results in an acute financial emergency – for example, due to loss of passport, illness, problems with family members, or difficulties with authorities.

The victims are asked to help quickly, with high time pressure and urged to make an immediate decision. A soon‑to‑be meeting is also held out as a prospect. If victims agree and make a money transfer, there are usually new complications shortly afterward and they are asked for further sums.

The financial demands only end when the victim breaks off contact. In addition, the addresses of the victims are stored and later used for further fraud purposes. Addresses are also sold on the darknet.

Love scamming is part of organized crime. Love scammers specialize in creating feelings and emotional dependencies in the victim in order to fleece them financially. Victims can be of any gender, although women are most frequently affected.

Victims of love scammers are harmed not only financially but also emotionally. In the worst case, traumatization with persistent distrust can occur, which hinders further partner search. Severe grief processes can also be triggered by the uncovering of the fraud and the loss of the supposed relationship.

Reliable Protection Against Love Scammers Is Possible

The good news in view of this distressing topic is that you can protect yourself very well from love scammers:

• Engage your mind and do not let wishful thinking be the father or mother of the thought. Such a quick intimate connection and deep love as love scammers often pretend from the second email onward should always be a reason for skepticism. Is the basis for such strong feelings on your counterpart’s side really already given? Ask yourself this question and keep a cool head.

• Conspicuous discrepancies are reason for caution. Do not let yourself be placated by fine words if you discover inconsistencies or contradictions in the profile or messages of your counterpart. Take these as an opportunity to doubt the seriousness and truthfulness of the person you are communicating with.

• Insist on a video conversation; a phone call is not enough. Because of the often fake pictures, many love scammers want to avoid video conversations. Of course, even this protection is not entirely certain because some may also operate with images.

• Become suspicious if appointments are delayed or postponed. If there is an evasive reaction to the wish for a meeting, if obstacles are named, or if multiple postponements occur, this is enough reason for serious doubt. This applies especially when the person is abroad and holds out the prospect of a visit that keeps getting delayed due to various complications.

• Ask the dating platform if anything seems inconsistent to you. Do not remain alone with your suspicion. Often this makes it easier for the dating provider to recognize conspicuous patterns, identify love scammers, and remove them. With your report, you help others and yourself. If the profile is blocked or suddenly disappears, do not under any circumstances maintain contact via email, social networks, or messenger systems. If you have already exchanged your phone number, hang up when the person in question contacts you, or change your number.

• It is also helpful to discuss inconsistencies with friends or family members and to share the exchange of messages with them for this purpose. Fight your impulses not to want to look at all, because the romantic feelings and longing are already too great. If it is true love, a thorough and scrutinizing look will certainly not do any harm. But if you are in danger of becoming a victim of love scammers, you can still avert the worst.

• Financial requests of any kind should always and without exception mean immediate termination of contact. Be honest with yourself. Love cannot be bought. Do not try to maintain or satisfy your longing in the short term through financial support. Any request for financial support is inappropriate in the partner‑search process and, in almost all cases, with near certainty points to the activities of love scammers.

As said, the objective of love scammers is financial gain – which is why requests for financial support are almost unavoidable for them at a certain point in the communication. In doing so, they reveal themselves as love scammers.

If you make it an iron rule to break off any contact without further ado that comes to you with a financial request or demand, you are immune to the vast majority of love scammers and thus on the safe side.

However, there are some much rarer methods used by love scammers to exploit people looking for a partner or to lure them into criminal acts.

Break off contact immediately if the following events occur:

• The person seemingly romantically connected to you asks you to give them your bank details. Do not agree to this, no matter what reasons the person gives for why they want to transfer money to your account. In all likelihood, it will be money laundering and you will put yourself in danger of committing crimes yourself.

• You are asked to accept or transport any suitcases or other objects via intermediaries. This may be linked to the prospect of a meeting in another country. In reality, you are to be used for smuggling, usually drug smuggling.

It may happen that you are asked to travel to another country so that you can both meet. This alone can certainly be a legitimate getting‑to‑know process. However, make sure that you have previously verified the identity of the person in question through official channels, and only meet in neutral locations. Also inform friends or family members and seek independent contacts locally (e.g., expatriates).

In any case, you should undertake such an international trip only after careful consideration and when no inconsistencies can be detected. Check with your local embassy whether it sees a risk.

Even if the meeting goes well, definitely refuse any request to transport any luggage for the person in question. There are cases where love scammers actually met their victims abroad and even became intimate, only to then use them as drug couriers. You can protect yourself from this with caution and vigilance.

Victims of love scammers can react very differently:

• A review article by Coluccia et al. (2020) describes shock, anger, grief, but also denial of the fraud, self‑blame, or the search for social support. The review makes it clear that middle‑aged women are more frequently affected than men and other age groups. On average, victims of love scammers show increased tendencies toward idealization, impulsivity, neuroticism, loneliness, but also an increased tendency toward addiction.

This is by no means about assigning responsibility to the victims, but about recognizing personal characteristics that can be exploited by love scammers.

Being aware of your own situation and characteristics can help you to strictly follow your reason when warning signs appear and to adhere to the above recommendations.

Loneliness and the desire for a quick partnership should not lead you to have your view clouded and to react to love scamming with idealization or denial.

Being a spontaneous person can be a strength, but caution should not be neglected in partner search.

Do not give love scammers a chance. Set a clear end as soon as signs of love scamming become apparent, and if in doubt, contact the respective platform immediately.

If you have become a victim of love scammers, you should file a police report; you can also turn to self‑help platforms.

Sexual Assault

Sexual violence is an endemic problem in all societies:

• According to a representative survey by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control on sexual violence experienced in the USA (2018), nearly one in two women (43.6 %) experienced sexual violence at least once in their lives, with nearly one in five women (21.3 %) being a victim of rape or attempted rape. Among men, nearly one in four (24.8 %) became a victim of sexual violence, with 7.1 % reporting forced penetration of another person and 2.6 % reporting being raped themselves.

• An earlier report (2013) by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control on the relationship between sexual violence experience and sexual orientation showed significantly higher rates of experienced sexual violence among bisexual women compared to heterosexual women, as well as among homosexual and bisexual men compared to heterosexual men.

• A study by Langenderfer‑Magruder et al. (2016) points to an elevated risk for transgender persons compared to homosexual and bisexual cis‑men and cis‑women. (Cis refers to the congruence between gender identity and biological sex.)

There are no representative data on the frequency of sexual violence in online dating. A distinction must be made between online sexual harassment, extortion with exchanged sexual material, and sexual violence and assault at meetings with persons originally met online.

Some studies have already addressed the topic:

• In a study by Choi et al. (2016) with students from Hong Kong, 12.4 % of respondents reported having experienced sexual violence or assault outside the internet in the past year, with the use of dating apps showing as a risk factor.

• Echevarria (2021) examined the frequency of experienced sexual violence and assault among 144 students who used dating apps: 88.1 % of respondents reported online sexual harassment, 37.8 % reported unwanted sending of sexual images, 42.0 % described sexual aggression or coercion, and 49.7 % described gender‑ or sexual‑orientation‑based sexual harassment. There were also statistically significant correlations between experienced sexual assault and psychological distress in the form of anxiety, depression, loneliness, reduced self‑control, low self‑esteem, or traumatic memories.

Some perpetrators deliberately search online dating platforms for victims for planned sexual assaults. Likewise, sexual assaults can occur that were not planned in advance and happen more impulsively out of the situation, with alcohol and substance use possibly playing a facilitating role.

It is important that you know these risks and take effective countermeasures so that your online partner search leads to positive human encounters and not to the suffering of sexual assault.

There can be no guarantee of safety, but with the following strategies you can significantly reduce the risk of sexual assault:

Strategies for Risk Reduction

There can be no guarantee of safety, but with the following strategies you can significantly reduce the risk of sexual assault:

Choose a paid matchmaking service

Free portals and dating apps are particularly often used by people who are not looking for a genuine relationship. Some of these people, in turn, are characterized by impulsivity, substance abuse, sex addiction, or a willingness to commit sexual assault.

With dating apps and dating sites, quicker access to a larger number of people in close proximity is possible than with matchmaking agencies, where suggestions are algorithm‑driven and where communication usually remains anonymous and exclusively via the platform for longer.

Those who specifically look for victims for sexual assault will usually not want to use paid platforms, also for the sake of anonymity. Of course, this is not an absolute barrier, especially since anonymous payments or payments with stolen payment data are also possible in some cases.

First meeting in a public place

It is strongly advised not to arrange to meet in a private apartment or outside in secluded places. This increases the risk of becoming a victim of sexual assault. Public places in the city center or cafés are the suitable location for the first encounter.

Notify friends or acquaintances

Tell friends or acquaintances about your date and also tell them where you are meeting. Be sure to arrange a phone safety check‑in. You can make the call openly in front of the person you are meeting. The other person may and should know that the meeting is no secret. By doing so, you signal that you are not alone. For people who plan assaults, this is often a deterrent, and the knowledge that others are also involved may deter someone from spontaneous assaults.

Pay attention to your gut feeling

You may not be able to name it precisely, but your feeling tells you that something is wrong? Take this signal seriously, because we often notice dangers before we can consciously perceive and justify them. Since you are in a public place, you can remain calm and composed. Take the time to check your feeling. Do not hesitate to end a meeting with friendly words if the threatening feeling persists. You can also have friends pick you up if you do not want to leave a place alone.

Talk openly about sexuality and your boundaries

Sexual assaults are not always planned and they are not always maliciously motivated. Assaults can be an expression of misunderstandings. Of course, this does not apply to criminal sexual offenses, but it does apply to physical approaches. The more openly you talk to each other about mutual attitudes toward sexuality, eroticism, physical closeness, and also the desired speed of physical closeness in a partner‑search process, the more such misunderstandings can be avoided. If you rule out sexuality at the first meeting from the outset, it makes sense to communicate this clearly even before the meeting.

Not at home the first time

Do you and the other person want to become intimate at the first meeting? A quick start to sexuality does not harm if both want it; on the contrary, it can even be helpful. For the first time, however, better go to a hotel than to the other person’s or your own home, unless you live in a shared flat and other people are present.

Make this your guiding principle:

• Caution and a healthy risk awareness are necessary for partner search.

Do Not Become an Assailant Yourself

There are not only those who suffer assaults, but of course also those who commit assaults. Otherwise there could be no assaults. As already stated, not all assaults are planned, and misunderstandings may underlie them – as also already mentioned.

This does not concern serious sexual offenses, but for example an embrace, kissing, or other touches. If these do not happen with mutual consent, they are also to be regarded as assaults.

In a survey by Consonance (Gleichklang) among members, 27 % of all men and 11 % of all women reported having been abusive at least once in their lives. These assaults were predominantly touches outside and inside the intimate area, kissing, and attempted undressing. Several men and women who reported their own sexual assaults stated that they had misinterpreted the other person’s wishes. In the survey, it was also stated several times that sexuality had not been discussed.

Therefore, strictly adhere to the following basic rule:

• Ask the other person directly whether they want physical closeness or sexuality or not. Make sure that you have explicit verbal consent from the other person for every physical approach and sexual act. You are still in the partner‑search process and may not know each other well enough to rely solely on non‑verbal consent.

Despite all sexual liberalization, skills and courage for open conversation about sexuality and physical closeness are still lacking in many people. However, misunderstandings can be avoided by simple questions such as: “May I put my arm around you?”, “I would like to kiss you, do you want that too?”, “Shall we sleep together?”

You should ask these questions when you have the impression that the other person might also be interested in physical closeness or sexuality.

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