PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Scammers are using Valentine’s Day to prey upon vulnerable singles looking for love.
It typically starts small: just a conversation between two people on social media, dating apps or even a random text message. Then, they’ll gain your trust and make it seem as if they’ve fallen in love. But you have to be careful.
“If an individual is contacting you constantly and continuing to ask you questions about your background, your financial situation, your investment, those are red flags,” said Nicole Sinegar, an agent with the Philadelphia FBI.
Sinegar said some vulnerable demographics include senior citizens who may be lonely and college students looking for love and new to investing.
“They would allow the individual to retrieve a small amount of money, and so the victim actually thinks that they made a return on investment, and they start to invest even more money,” Sinegar said.
If you found someone through a dating app, it’s important to look at their profile photos and do an image search online to see if their picture has been used on other profile sites. Sinegar said scammers are leveraging technological advances like AI images, which can make detecting these things very difficult.
Officials urge you to be suspicious. If someone isn’t going to meet up with you after talking on the phone and they start to “love bomb” you or call with an urgent situation, telling you they need money, don’t fall for it.
“People shouldn’t be asking you for money or telling you they love you after two weeks of talking on the phone,” Sinegar said.
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