How Online Dating Services are Fighting Romance Fraud (Guest blog by ODA)
As Valentine’s Day approaches tomorrow, thoughts turn to love and romance. We know that at least a third of couples now find their relationship through an online dating service, and the Online Dating Association is delighted that so many couples find their happiness through the sector’s offering.
However, with any successful servicecomes those who seek to act criminally for profit. Romance fraud is just that type of crime. In romance fraud, criminals seek to convince victims they have found the perfect partner through the use of behavioural conditioning and manipulation.
So how does romance fraud work?
It is most often carried out by criminal gangs, who deliver their fraud in an almost business-like manner. The fraudster first joins a dating site or social media platform, and then starts messaging many users with statements which are often very intense and full of ‘love’. When they get a response and begin communicating regularly, the fraudster moves the victim off the dating service or social platform and on to text, email or encrypted messaging service as quickly as possible, to avoid detection by the dating services content moderation.
The first days/weeks of conversation between the criminal and the victim is often called ‘love-bombing’ - the fraudster makes the victim feel very loved and special, isolates them from friends and family, and puts enormous pressure on the importance of the relationship. However, the victim and the fraudster are never ‘able’ to meet in person - always because of an emotional, yet fake, reason.
Once the victim believes in the relationship, the criminal can begin creating false situations in which they are in need of money. This might be for health issues, for travel, for business or another heart-rending reason. The victim sends the money, sometimes once, often more than once, then at some point doesn’t hear from the criminal again. The emotional, financial and mental damage is vast and long lasting. At the moment, there is a lack of capacity in law enforcement to investigate and prosecute fraud, and it is very difficult for victims to recover their money.
So what can be done to mitigate the harm on dating platforms?
Dating services are continually innovating and trying to stay one step ahead of romance fraud criminals. Online Dating Association members have excellent content moderation systems, which include:
- Scanning profiles and messages for ‘red flags’ which might indicate fraud or other harm.
- Sending flagged profiles are sent for human moderation, and if the flag is upheld, the profiles are banned and the IP addresses recorded for future
- Fraud detection systems can pick up known images or IP addresses used by scammers. Many services also ban VPNs and internet phone numbers.
- Utilising new ‘safety tech’ options available on the market and incorporating these in the ‘Know-your-customer’ process of joining
- Building in user education, such as sending reminders and notifications about staying safe within the service, if the content moderation systems flags potential harms.
All ODA members have good reporting systems, and we encourage users to report bad experiences to the platform and in the case of fraud, to Action Fraud. And finally, ODA and its members are very keen to continue to raise awareness of romance fraud and support improving education for internet users on how to be safe in their online dating experience.
But we can’t do this alone. We need the full chain of businesses involved in fraud, as well as law enforcement and Government, to come together to create intelligence and data sharing systems, as well as coordinated education and public awareness campaigning. Technology by itself cannot solve the fact that 41% of crime in the UK is fraud (Fighting Fraud, Breaking the Chain, 2022).
Authors
Hannah Shimko
Hannah's work at the ODA focuses on the impact of legislation and regulation on the online dating sector, as well as communicating the benefits and challenges of online dating and its services to stakeholders and the public.