A study presented recently at the annual meeting of the British Psychological Society concluded that people with strong romantic beliefs who form idealistic images of their romantic partners are most likely to become a victim of an online dating scam.  This is no surprise, however, anyone who uses online dating websites can easily find themselves targeted as a victim.  Victims of online dating scams end up giving money to people who misrepresent themselves and their intentions on online dating websites.  There are entire websites that are totally made up of scammers, but scammers also turn up on legitimate online dating and romance websites who cannot guarantee that everyone listed on their website is legitimate.

TIPS

Some of the things to look for to protect yourself from an online dating scam include, requests for money to assist your new “friend” out of difficult situation, which may be a false arrest, a car accident, an illness, injury or other emergency.  Many of the dating and romance scammers are foreigners posing as Americans.  Be wary of poor grammar or spelling.