Romance Scams Are on the Rise

Over the last 3 years, reports in romance scams have doubled.

Romance scams occur when an individual creates a fake identity online to gain a victims trust and affection, then uses the illusion of romance to scam them into giving them money. Not only are the number of victims increasing, but so is the amount of money per scam. According to the Co-Founder of Social Catfish, David McClellan, on average a romance scam victim loses approximately $44,000. People of all ages are susceptible to scams.

“We’re also seeing younger people fall for these scams more and more. Like people 20 years and younger, that demographic has actually increased over 1200% over the last 3 years.” Co-Founder of Social Catfish, David McClellan stated.

To avoid being scammed online, you can video chat the person you’ve been texting or run a reversed image search. You can use tools like Google or Social Catfish.com to upload a photo of the person to see if they’re who they say they are.

“Just from running the reversed image search, you can see who really owns the image, and you can see if the person is really telling the truth. So that’s the easiest thing you can do.” McClellan said.

For more tips and information, visit the link below.

Reverse Lookup to Search and Verify Identities – Social Catfish