This article was contributed by Deborah Tan-Pink, Head of Communications & PR at Revolut Singapore
The Tinder Swindler may have become one of Netflix’s most-watched documentaries but stories of men and women getting scammed by the “love of their life” happen every day. In 2020, victims in Singapore gave more than $33 million to criminals who had seduced them into fraudulent online relationships.
Internet love scams — where people are tricked into transferring money to criminals they meet on online dating platforms — are on the rise, no thanks to lockdown loneliness driven by the pandemic and the need to minimise face-to-face interactions.
Over at Revolut’s headquarters in London, our Fraud Risk Manager Richard Bromley has made this observation, “Requests for money often are highly emotive, such as criminals claiming they need money for emergency surgery, medical care, or to pay for tickets and travel documents to visit the victim. The most recent trend we’ve observed is criminals convincing their victims to invest significant funds on fraudulent investment platforms so ‘they can build a life together’.”
Revolut is a payments app founded in London. In Singapore, the Revolut app allows our customers to exchange, send, receive, spend, and donate money at low to no costs.
Love The Way You Lie
Despite efforts to educate members of the public about scams, emotions can cloud even the most rational minds, especially amidst this loneliness epidemic triggered by the pandemic. A 2021 survey done by Lunch Actually of singles in Singapore found that more than two-thirds of 500 respondents said they felt lonely, while about half of them shared that they had not gone on any physical date that year.
As a former women’s magazine editor, I’ve encountered more than my fair share of online love stories gone wrong. In these bad romances, scammers would often pretend they were in jobs that made it difficult for them to have “normal” relationships. They’d be based somewhere remote — for instance, an oil rig — with poor Internet connection, making it challenging to have the camera switched on when chatting with their victims. “It’s hard for me to explain what he does for a living because he’s not like most people,” was a line I heard frequently.
Gradually, a victim might start to cut themselves off from their friends and family because “no one seems to understand what we have here”.
Victims were often led to believe that the swindler had no reason whatsoever to cheat them of their hard-earned money. The scammer might assume the persona of a rich, successful but mysterious individual and put in the work to make the victim feel “lucky” that they were in a relationship together. Once trust had been established, victims would be sucked into an elaborate ploy where they’d find themselves giving varying sums of money to the objects of their affection.
It could go something like this: The scammer might say how they are in need of some cash to evade enemies in high places. They’d convince the victim to transfer money to an overseas account so these enemies won’t find them. Or, the scammer might propose with an expensive ring and suggest they hold a lavish wedding at an exclusive venue overseas because he has VIP-friends that would like to grace the event. They’d offer to organise the event and extract cash from the victim for “deposits”.
At the end of the day, we need to see that loneliness is a big Archiles’ heel and scammers are more than willing to shower their victims with the very thing they crave — attention.
Love In A Hopeless Place
How does one then spot a love scammer? Some telltale signs:
#1 There’s always a reason why they can’t meet in person
The scammer may not be who they claim to be. That handsome nuclear scientist working for the Pentagon may actually be a pimply teenager behind a computer screen. If they can never seem to meet you in person (“my flight got cancelled”, “I got called into a last-minute assignment”), that may be a red flag to watch out for.
#2 Their lives are mysterious and full of dramas
We have all at one point in our lives fantasised about being in a relationship worthy of its own Hollywood production. If the object of your affection seems to always have some drama (“my bodyguard betrayed me”, “my business partner is really a North Korean spy”) going on in their lives, perhaps it’s time to cool your heels and do a reality check.
#3 Their problems could only be solved with money
If you’re being asked to cough up money to prove your love (“I promise to treat you well when I make it big”), seek out the advice of trusted friends. Be honest about your relationship and don’t get defensive when you find yourself unable to provide satisfactory answers to their questions.
How Revolut Protect Customers From Scammers
Customers falling prey to scammers are most certainly a matter of grave concern to any financial institution. At Revolut, our financial crime team is constantly working to protect our customers from the risk of falling victims to scams — romantic or otherwise.
As a global financial super-app with over 18 million customers, we are constantly investing in state-of-the-art machine learning technology to identify transactional and behavioural activity that could point to scams. To help customers break the spell of a scam, the Revolut app would display warnings throughout the payment journey asking questions like whether a customer trusts the person they are sending money to.
If a customer suspects they may have fallen victim to a scammer, they should immediately contact our in-app support team, who is on hand 24/7 to help them.
Ultimately, a love scam works because we want to believe that we deserve to have someone who loves us. But remember, love is a positive emotion so if you struggle to explain what kind of person your partner is, feel like you are only worthy if you satisfy them financially, or are ashamed whenever you give them money, there’s a high chance your heart isn’t the only thing that will get stolen eventually.
Learn more about Revolut here.
Read Also: Has Personal Internet Banking Changed For The Better After The OCBC Phishing Scams?
