Block the dating app parasites

The scams are subtly different, yet sadly the same. A victim, usually a woman, matches with someone on an online dating platform. The match has a fake name and profile picture and purports to be a wealthy businessman, based overseas.

Convincing-looking screenshots and elaborate fake videos support this. The conversation quickly moves off the dating site and into private emails or messaging services.

Then it begins: months of messages, phone calls, relationship-building and professions of love,

before a turn. Something is wrong. A business disruption, frozen bank accounts, maybe even a tragic death. The man needs money, fast. Can the victim help? Often they can, and, after empty promises of repayment, they hand over their savings, surrender their children’s inheritances and tap every line of credit they can get. All to pay money to a faceless criminal network dedicated to fleecing people just like them. Many end up losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It is the saddest and most insidious of scams and over the past week The Press has told numerous versions of this story – the ‘‘Tinder swindler’’. Victims manipulated into relinquishing their money through a mixture of love, loneliness and generosity. Even if they become suspicious, they seem unable to escape the quagmire. ‘‘You get to a point where you just think ‘Holy f...ing god, please let this be real because I’m going to get some money back,’ ’’ one woman said, ‘‘and then you just get yourself deeper and deeper into it until the day you realise.’’

It is also a scam on the increase. Banking ombudsman Nicola Sladden said there had been a ‘‘concerning rise’’ in such frauds in recent years. In the wake of The Press coverage, the Green Party has called for banks to brief MPs on their processes and the consumer protections they provide against scams. ‘‘The public would benefit from hearing from our large banks … on what current approaches are and where they may need updating,’’ Green MP Chlo¨ e Swarbrick said.

This is the right move. Banks employ a range of fraud protection measures, but ‘‘push payment’’ scams – in which a victim willingly transfers their own money to a scammer – are among the hardest to prevent. Banks are unlikely to be liable for following a customer’s instructions to send money offshore.

There are options, however. While banks aren’t obliged to monitor customers’ transactions, Sladden says they should take ‘‘reasonable steps’’ to identify and act on red flags, such as when a customer is evasive or vague about the purpose of a transaction. In other areas the case for proactive defence is even stronger. Some of the Tinder swindler victims, having exhausted their own funds, used personal loans to borrow even more money to give to scammers. Here, banks have more oversight. A loan applicant light on details about exactly why they need money should invite closer scrutiny.

Banks cannot always protect customers from themselves or the parasites who exploit them, but even a parliamentary fact-finding mission into what is being done about scammers and what could be done is a worthwhile endeavour. ‘‘The most important thing here,’’ Swarbrick said, ‘‘is understanding where things are at and, if there are identifiable deficiencies, how they could be done better.’’ There will never be a perfect solution, but parasites are by nature drawn to vulnerable hosts. Remove at least some of the vulnerabilities and they will be forced to look elsewhere.

A loan applicant light on details about exactly why they need money should invite closer scrutiny.