Valentine’s Day is almost here—and so are the scams

It’s the season of love and I couldn’t resist a post about the scams about online dating. I also covered it in The Snitch (my newsletter), which came out today. There, I looked at a different perspective. Feel free to check out the newsletter here.

One of the things that prompted me to cover this topic was that the Better Business Bureau released a warning this past week to members of the military about online dating scams. Sadly, our guys and girls in uniform are just as likely, if not more so, to be caught up in one of these scams. With that in mind, let’s take a look at ways to spot one of these scams.

In today’s world, you’re more likely to fall victim to a scam than a serial killer (thank goodness!), but wouldn’t it be better to avoid both? Here are a few tips to help the bad guys before they reel you in and get your money.

• The other person is overly friendly very quickly.
• He or she claims to be from this country but is currently traveling, living or working abroad.
• They have only a few friends on their Facebook profile, they just recently joined Facebook, or their profile contains many grammatical errors.
• They start talking about money or they ask for credit card information. They may claim their wallet was stolen or that they have an emergency or a sick relative or stolen wallet. They might even talk about needing cash to visit. If anyone ever starts this discussion with you, get away fast.
• He or she offers to exchange compromising photos. Teenage girls are especially prone to fall for this ploy. But, the fact is you will never know where that photo will wind up until it’s way too late.