Nobody knows better how good online romance scammers can be in manipulating the truth than their victims. It is easy for other people to judge, or to think that these con men can be easily identified. But the truth is that criminals have been duping people out of their money for a long, long time and know well how to do it. Even Russian online gangs are becoming part of the problem.

The internet plays a main role in the whole love scam issue. Besides being the place where the fraud takes place, the internet is also the main resource for the information that scammers use. Fake profiles are very hard to identify nowadays because most of the information they contain is true, but it belongs to someone else. No dating site is immune from fraud, and no one is 100% safe when using them. Fraudsters create fake profiles all the time, and only once in a while get caught in their game.

Russian romance scammers do their research first, and they target you carefully. They find a good looking lady online, steal her pictures and probably some details from her real life like her job or her address, and go from there. Many of the details used in fake dating sites actually correspond to someone in the real life, which makes it hard for anyone to notice they are being fooled.

Sometimes the ladies in the pictures are involved with the mafia rings operating Russian scams and they collaborate with the pictures, videos and occasional video chats just to make things believable. Under these circumstances, who could actually suspect of fraud?  The criminals are no fools.

As experienced private investigators in Russia, Russia PI™ has worked with love fraud for a long time. Facts change, strategies change, but there is a common thread that should alert online users.

These are some of the red flags:

An excessive use of professional photography. Russian women are famous for their beauty, but let´s be honest. How many professional photographs do you or your friends or anybody you know have? Online scammers use professional pictures everywhere, on every different pose and location. There is a reason for that: either the pictures were stolen from a model or from some online site.  Everyone likes a good photo for the profile picture, but once you have been talking to this person and the professional photos seem to continue being their only photos they share, then this should ring a bell!

Very elaborate descriptions on the profiles. Sometimes people have perfect descriptions and write fancy introductory letters. Scammers copy and paste these beautifully written introductions from other places. It is good to copy the text and look if there is anything similar or exactly the same somewhere else on the internet. If it is, then chances are the profile is fake.

People who get too attached, too fast. Love most of the time does not happen after 3 days of chatting. This is an important red flag, because although scammers take their time to gain their victims´ trust, they also want to be as efficient as possible. Rushing means they will get paid sooner.

Hardship in any form. Romance scammers pick well their victims. They try to find people with a good heart and who have probably gone through rough times recently. This makes them prone to offer help, and that is exactly what scammers are looking for. Distance makes other types of help impossible, so asking for financial help for the lady in need is one of the most common tricks used, and it is an indication that the profile probably belongs to a fraudster.  But, be advised, not all scammers ask for money.  Some steal your personal data and money via other methods.

None of the above are guarantee of a fake profile, nor does it mean that when these things are not present then the profile is legit. The only way to verify if people are being honest about themselves is to run a professional Russia background check to get clear evidence and facts.

C. Wright
© 2014 Russia PI™

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