Are You Looking for Love? Be Careful Not to Get Scammed Online

I've seen a few episodes of Dr. Phil where he has people on who have fallen in love online and sent money to the person they think they are in a relationship with, even though they have never met face to face.

Then come to find out these people are not anything but scammers. They purposely look for people online who are vulnerable and lonely and they draw them in. Tell them everything they want to hear. Make them feel loved. Then take their money after they have gained the others trust. Some people have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars!

You wonder when watching the Dr. Phil episodes about these scams, how can anyone fall for this?  Well more people may fall victim to these scams than we realize.

The FBI just released its annual report on online fraud, and Americans were scammed out of more than $800 million last year. Let's it break down:

People who were looking for love make up around 11% of that $800 million which equates to $86.7 million. Four out of five of people who fell for these love scam were over 40 years old and almost 70% were women.

The most common scam is someone pretending to be in the military and they start an online relationship, then starts asking for money. These people target people on dating websites, chat rooms, and social media. They gather up some personal information about the person they are going to target and use well rehearsed scripts.

The average person who falls for fraud online loses $2,971.

In my opinion these are the lowest of the low. They don't care if someone is a widow who lives off a fixed income. They don't care if someone is a single mother who works hard to provide for her children. They will take and take until people don't have anymore to give. Heartless people.

It's easier than people would think to fall for thees scams. People get lonely and someone says all the "right things". They gain their trust and then pounce. We all need to be careful of these scams and warn family members and friends. Especially ones who may be more vulnerable to these sort of scams.

Do you know anyone who has ever been a victim of an internet scam?

Source: NBC News