Valentine’s Day Danger: Chocolate, Flowers and Scams

Aaaah Valentine's Day, the day that ever year is said said to be the most romantic of the entire year. A day where couples celebrate love with their significant others and really it's a celebration of the emotion and joy that love brings. That being said, not everything is all roses this time of the year, as Valentine's Day is also a prime time of the year where scammers will try and take advantage of those who are looking for love.

Valentine's Day: Love, Gifts and New Way of Dating

Every year during the Valentine's Day season, people collectively spend millions upon millions of dollars on gifts and presents dedicated to showing love to the person or people that matter most to them. That willingness to spend money though leaves people open to being taken advantage of. This is particularly noticeable in today's day and age where online dating has in many ways surpassed conventional dating where you'd meet people in person first.

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

Social media has made it incredibly easy for scammers to deceive so many people. All you need is a few pictures, a little bit of basic bio information and you can have a fake profile in minutes. Throw up a few posts, interact with a handful of people, make them feel like they "know you" and you can have certain individuals eating out of your hand. Around Valentine's Day in particular, this can sometimes be even easier. While Valentine's Day may be a great day for couples, for single people it can feel like an incredibly lonely day. Scammers love those particular people, because on Valentine's Day, 1 truly is the loneliest number.

Love Scams' Can be Quite Expensive

I truly wish what I was saying wasn't true but sadly statistical information does exist to back up this fact. Information released by the FBI shows that....

 More than 19,000 people fell victim

to romance scams last year...

Those 19,000 people collectively lost a total of nearly "$740 million dollars". That is an incredible sum of money. In addition, FBI data also showed that "romance scams" had increased dramatically during the Covid-19 pandemic. The key component of these scams is that scammers WANT to take advantage of those who are looking for love or companionship. Emotions are a powerful thing but they also have the ability to blind judgement, which can make you a prime target for scammers this time of year.

How to Identify a Scammer

A brightside does exist here though. Though scammers may be clever, there are a few ways that they can be snuffed out. First and foremost, if you've been interacting with someone and no matter how many times you try, you are unable to meet them in person, that should be first giant red flag that your dealing with a scammer. Next, if you are looking for love you are better off using real professional sites as opposed to back end sites. Keeping that in mind, also be very careful with the information you are willing to share online about yourself.

Lastly, under no circumstance should you be sending or transfering money to someone you don't know. Scammers will take you for all your worth if you let them and that could potentially make you the perfect person to help out the scammer with their money laundering schemes.

In no way is this a hit on Valentine's Day, but it is warning that when it comes to love you'd best be careful where you try to find it.