Lockdown gives birth to a new fraud

In times of social distancing, online romance scams are on the rise as more people are taking to dating apps and social media

As millions of people get hooked to online dating platforms, their proliferation has led to online romance scams becoming a modern form of fraud that have spread in several societies along with the development of social media like Facebook Dating, warn researchers. For example, extramarital dating app Gleeden has crossed 10 lakh users in India in COVID-19 times while dating apps like Tinder and Bumble have gained immense popularity.

According to researchers from University of Siena and Scotte University Hospital led by Dr Andrea Pozza, via a fictitious Internet profile, the scammer develops a romantic relationship with the victim for 6-8 months, building a deep emotional bond to extort economic resources in a manipulative dynamic.

“There are two notable features: on the one hand, the double trauma of losing money and a relationship, on the other, the victim's shame upon discovery of the scam, an aspect that might lead to underestimation of the number of cases,” the authors wrote in a paper published in the journal Clinical Practice & Epidemiology in Mental Health.

Around 1,400 dating sites/chats have been created over the last decade in North America alone. In the UK, 23 per cent of Internet users have met someone online with whom they had a romantic relationship for a certain period and even 6 per cent of married couples met through the web.

“The online dating industry has given rise to new forms of pathologies and crime,” said the authors.

The results showed that 63 per cent of social media users and 3 per cent of the general population reported having been a victim at least once. Online romance scams are, in other words, relationships constructed through websites for the purpose of deceiving unsuspecting victims in order to extort money from them.