Military Romance Scam - These stories' design is to get you to open emotionally and make a connection and build trust, so it is harder to say no when they ask you for something, typically money, financial information, or personal photos.
Are you dating or talking online to someone who says they are a military member? Have they asked you for funds or documents? You might be looking for true love, but chances are good that you are the victim of one of thousands of military romance scams conducted every day.
Military Romance Scam
Officials from the United States military and the F.B.I. said many of the culprits are young men from Africa. When The Times followed the trail of one scam, it led to Nigeria, where six men said in interviews that they swindled Westerners over the internet because it paid far more than honest work, which they said was hard to find.
Who’s Behind The Love Hoaxes?
For months or weeks, they try to seduce the women with sweet talk and promises of a future together. Eventually, they ask for money. When victims send funds, they often do so via wire transfers or iTunes and Amazon gift cards, which the scammers sell at a discount on the black market.
To quickly uncover the identity of the person you're talking with, you can use the help of a professional people search engine. No matter what information you're looking for, these effective tools can get you more accurate results.
BeenVerified is a leading all-rounder in the field of people search and specializes in searching for digital footprints. With a large database containing millions of public records, you can search for the profile of your date on BeenVerified.
Katie is a content creator at Super Easy. She expresses her passion through writing about life hacks, coupon tricks, and tech tips for her audience. Katie covers a variety of topics, from gaming to everyday life tips, from technology to beauty.
Beenverified – Research Your Date’s Real Identity
When she's not writing, she can be found on the way to a concert or a weekend getaway road trip. Because many of the accounts impersonate Army soldiers, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, which investigates crimes involving Army personnel, has become a repository for victims' complaints.
But investigators there can't look into the reports because the victims and perpetrators are civilians, said Chris Grey, a spokesperson for the division. Victims of these online scams often think they are doing a good deed by helping a military member.
Instead, they have given their money to a scammer, sometimes losing thousands of dollars, with very low possibility of recovery. The company added that facial recognition technology notifies people when another account uses their photo, although tests by The Times showed the feature sometimes didn't work.
Facebook is also testing software that can automatically spot impostors of some of the most commonly impersonated service members. Also, search their name on all social media platforms to look for inconsistencies. Most people on social media post about their daily life.
By Katie Yan
Those involved with military dating scams typically have only professional photos and minimal content. When it comes to military records search, you'll want to make TruthFinder your first stop. TruthFinder is a famous background check service that gives you access to millions of records.
By searching with a name, you'll get a detailed background report that may help you figure out the person's true identity. Scammers steal photos from service members' Facebook and Instagram profiles and use them to create impostor accounts.
To find victims, they search Facebook groups for targets — often single women and widows — and then message hundreds, hoping to hook a few. If you find your online date from Facebook or Tinder suspicious, or you need to look out for a friend or family, read on to learn how to check if a soldier is real or an imposter.
One of the company's primary lines of defense are reports from users. The Times reported more than 100 impostor accounts through the online reporting systems on Facebook and Instagram in recent months. In response, the sites left up more of the accounts than they took down.
Truthfinder – Search Military Records By Name
After The Times provided the accounts to spokeswomen at Facebook and the Department of Defense, nearly all were removed. Social Catfish, as the name suggests, specializes in finding social media accounts. It's a great tool to protect yourself from online romance scams and catfish.
You can also run a reverse photo lookup to see the available social media profiles connected to it. Since military scammers usually use aliases or impersonate a real military service member, you may not find useful information by simply Google searching the name.
However, you can try to run a reverse image search with Google to see if it brings up anything. The photo itself may be stolen from a real soldier, so you may be able to find warnings about it from other victims.
Internet scammers arrived with the dial-up modem years ago, conning people in chat rooms and email inboxes. Now Facebook and Instagram provide fraudsters with greater reach and resources, enabling them to more convincingly impersonate others and more precisely target victims.
How Does It Work?
Officials and websites like Military.com receive hundreds of questions or allegations a month from victims who state they got involved in an online relationship with someone who claims to be in the U.S. military but started asking for money for various false service-related needs such as transportation costs;
communication fees; or marriage, processing or medical fees. "I am 90G military officer with the 1s infantry 62nd battalion army," said one script obtained by The Times. The scripts also help with small talk: "Movies: Brave Heart and all the films that Anthony Hopkins is in."
The U.S. has established numerous task forces to deal with this growing epidemic. Unfortunately, the people committing these scams are often overseas — using untraceable email addresses, routing accounts through numerous locations around the world and utilizing pay-per-hour Internet cyber cafes.
Social Catfish – Reverse Photo Lookup On Social Media
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