Greg's Corner

Romance scammers are FaceTime frauds

By Greg Collier

A lot has been made about romance scammers in the news this week because of Valentine’s Day. While it’s always a good thing when the media shares information about this scam, it’s a scam that people should watch out for all year round. While the scam largely targets the elderly, anyone can fall victim to the scam regardless of age or gender. To complicate matters, romance scammers can use technological tricks to get around some of the red flags.

For example, a widow from California recently lost $120,000 to a romance scam. The victim had met the scammer on Date, a dating platform primarily used by Jewish singles. The scammer claimed to be an international businessman from Germany living in Texas. That should have been a red flag, as romance scammers almost always pose as someone who is often out of the country. Other popular positions that romance scammers claim to have are being stationed overseas in the military or oil rig workers. This gives the scammers plausible deniability when it comes to meeting in person.

That leads us to our next red flag, as the scammer in this instance also kept making excuses as to why the pair couldn’t meet in person. Then the requests for money started, which should be the biggest red flag indicating a romance scam. However, this particular scammer used a gimmick that probably made all the red flags go away.

According to the victim, she would talk to who she thought was her romantic partner over the video chat app FaceTime. Typically, on FaceTime scam calls, the scammer will only show a picture and will claim that there’s something wrong with their camera or device. However, it’s not unheard of there being convincing filters that can imitate other people while FaceTiming. An untrained eye may not be able to spot such a ruse, but you can see how that might convince someone that their online relationship is real.

When it comes to romance scams, no red flag should ever be ignored. If you’re using a dating site and someone asks to move off the platform to communicate, that could be a red flag. Always do a reverse image search, as scammers will often use pictures that are stolen from online platforms. And most importantly, never send money, no matter how big or small the amount.