Will you look for Wallet or for Love?

Today technology is playing an important role in making new relations. Increased interest in internet dating is turning the relations hi-tech. Dating sites are no more new for the people today but the same has increased the risk of being cheated. There is no basis of faith and trust on anyone on internet sites and internet fraud, many times, costs a lot of money to the victims.

Rashmi Verma, who recently met Vinod through internet dating site, was very excited to meet him. When she went to the specified place to meet Vinod, she waited for 5 long hours and no one arrived to see her. It was clear that she was cheated.

“I was devastated,” she said. “He wound up winning my heart.”

Number of people joining these sites is increasing day by day. In case of fraud, not only the people get hurt emotionally but many times have to bear financial loses also.

The cheater usually tries to make a strong emotional bond with the prey through constant communication. The relationship can long for even 6-8 months.

A recent case of financial fraud romance case was of a Bangalore girl named Priyanka who met Rajeev on a dating site. Priyanka was told by Rajeev of course that he was a civil engineer who came to Bangalore for a contract of constructing some roads.

After the first month of chit-chat, phone numbers are exchanged between the two and slowly Rajeev won the heart of Priyanka.

Priyanka, on her side, had done some light research to calm down her suspicions on him and got sure enough after finding on internet that he was accepting bids for building roads.

After getting her full faith, demands started from his side. First some little demands which were continued to direct cash requests. At first he said that his mobile was missing and Priyanka bought a new one for him.

Later he asked a help of Rs 5000 at start for some urgent work. Priyanka gave him the amount. But when he asked for more Rs 5000, she got a sinking feeling. But she made Rs 2000 to give him.

Finally she did a serious enquiry about him when he told that he had been in an accident and needed some money immediately. On the site his photo was there and she found that he was a fraud.

Match.com, aware of the risks of dating online, provides tips for users to help avoid that one “bad apple.”

“We do … encourage members to do their own research on potential love matches, including asking questions, utilizing Internet search engines, and most importantly, use common sense,” the site says.

There were 206,884 complaints regarding Internet fraud last year, costing victims more than $239 million, according to the FBI Internet Crime Report.

Scammers usually work on internet from other countries and use photos of others they find online. A simple Google search sometimes can help finding that the person is genuine or using someone others name and photo.

An expert advice is only that be cautious, learn as much as you can about your online suitor. Do not direct your home to any one and don’t give any financial help to any one you didn’t met ever.