'Maze' of online love scams

Users of dating apps and websites need to be alert to sweet words and lucrative promises. (Source: cpcs.vn)

Money lost, love broken

With the development of information technology, nowadays, there are many websites and dating applications used by many people with the hope of finding their "other half". However, instead of finding happiness, they become "prey" for the emotional scams of bad guys.

In June 2023, the Hanoi Police Investigation Agency prosecuted and temporarily detained TAS (44 years old, residing in Tam Hung commune, Thanh Oai district, Hanoi) for fraud and property appropriation. It is known that TAS defrauded seven women of love and money. TAS's trick was to create an account on Facebook, introducing himself as having a stable job, living with his retired parents, and his older siblings as teachers. But of course, it was all fake information.

TAS often goes online to search for targets, which are gullible, trusting, and emotionally deprived women. Once the prey has "taken the bait", S introduces himself as a single person, who, in addition to working for a salary, also opened an outside company. After dating the victims, S will use the excuse that the company is in trouble to borrow money, accompanied by "sweet" promises. Notably, S only accepts cash, not transfers to easily erase traces. Finally, when he sees that the victims are "exhausted" of money, S makes an excuse to break up. If the victims ask for money, the subject will call to threaten and curse. The total amount of money that S has swindled from the victims is up to 2.5 billion VND.

In particular, there is a method of online love fraud that is "blooming", which is the trick of impersonating foreigners to make friends through social networks, then pretending to send gifts to Vietnam to appropriate property. Specifically, these subjects will introduce themselves as officers, doctors, businessmen, lawyers, etc., foreigners using social networks to make friends and find love. Once they have the trust of the victim, these subjects often "play" on greed, saying that they will send gold, dollars or valuable gifts to Vietnam. After a while, the victim will receive a call from a "customs officer" asking to pay a fine of several tens to several hundreds of millions, the reason the package is held is because it contains too much dollars or valuable items. If the victim "falls into the trap" and transfers money once, they will ask for many more times to squeeze out the "prey".

Not only defrauding people for love and property, many subjects are also "disguised" human traffickers online. For example, in 2021, the People's Court of Cao Bang province sentenced TVM to 22 years in prison for the crimes of: Human trafficking; Trafficking of people under 16 years old and "Fraudulent appropriation of property". Specifically, TVM (Cho Moi district, Bac Kan province) was contacted by a Chinese man looking to buy women. TVM went online to get acquainted with NTH (Bao Thang, Lao Cai), after a period of dating online, he invited H to China to work for hire. But M colluded with a number of subjects to sell H to China, while M stayed in Vietnam and received the agreed amount of 10 million VND. H was taken to China to sell sex, but luckily escaped and went to the Chinese police station to report the incident.

Although all of the above cases are not new scam methods, there are still many victims who "fall into the trap", lose love, lose money and suffer severe psychological trauma. Through the victims' descriptions, the scammers often create a "cover" for themselves as people with good looks, decent jobs, and a rich life. After a period of acquaintance and conversation, the scammers will offer to send expensive, valuable gifts to Vietnam or borrow money from their "lovers" to invest, do business, or contribute capital to do business. After the victims trust and "fall into the trap", the scammers often flee and immediately cut off contact.

In fact, many victims have been alert, but not everyone can escape the sophisticated traps set by scammers. In particular, thanks to the development of information technology, photoshop, artificial intelligence, many people can "change their faces" (using Deepfake technology) into attractive, successful men and women to video call and talk, winning the trust of victims.

Beware of "fat cakes"

Many people lost hundreds of millions, even were sold into prostitution by online love scammers.

In a survey by Decision Lab with 1,012 Vietnamese people, up to 65% are using at least one dating app. Of which, Tinder is the most popular dating app (accounting for about 22%), followed by messaging apps such as Zalo, Telegram... accounting for about 21%, Facebook accounting for about 17%. In terms of frequency of use, the report assessed that Vietnamese people use dating apps quite often, with nearly 30% of survey participants using it daily, 19% using it 2-3 times/week,... Besides the advantages when users can easily talk, make friends and find suitable partners right on the internet, there are still many people who are cheated out of love, money, and even fall into the hands of human traffickers.

According to the Department of Information Security (Ministry of Information and Communications), in the first 6 months of 2023 alone, online fraud in Vietnam increased by 64.78% compared to the same period last year; increased by 37.82% compared to the last 6 months of 2022. Data from the Internet Crime Reports organization shows that in 2020 alone, up to 24,000 people were victims of love scams on social networks, reporting financial losses of more than 600 million dollars. Although there is a lot of information about love scams, many people are still blinded by greed and emotions, being tricked by the trick of transferring real money to receive bitterness and hurt in return.

“Taking advantage” of the psychology of loneliness, lack of affection, gullibility, trust and greed, these subjects often promise to give the victims large sums of money, along with guarantees for the future and satisfaction of the victims’ emotional needs. From there, the bad guys can easily seize the assets of their “lovers” met online. The amount can be only a few hundred thousand to several billion VND.

With the development of technology today, scammers use many sophisticated methods and tricks to commit crimes, tending to intertwine and combine many different forms. There are even cases of love fraud and property appropriation that are transnational in nature on cyberspace, causing great damage. Most of the transactions between victims and scammers take place online, so the investigation and tracking of criminals encounter many difficulties.

In particular, it is very difficult for the victim to recover the money they have been scammed by themselves, because they have only been provided with fake information and do not know who the scammer behind the screen is or where he or she lives. The only way to deal with the scammer and recover the money is to report the scam to the competent police agency.

The Information Security Department also recommends that social network users should not trust unclear or overly attractive promises and commitments. Scammers often use tricks to create trust and lure victims, so always check and verify information before taking any financial action or sending information.

To avoid falling into this scam trap, the Police Department recommends that people be vigilant with strange applications, especially tricks such as: Do not log in to strange links; do not provide or enter your login name, access password, Internet banking PIN, OTP code, account number into strange websites or links... People need to be vigilant, always put themselves in a safe zone when participating in online dating applications, to avoid being taken advantage of and scammed by bad guys. When encountering cases like the above, people need to immediately report to the nearest police agency for handling measures in accordance with the provisions of the law. And to help the investigation go smoothly, the victim needs to collect all relevant information such as text messages, phone numbers, bank accounts for fraudulent transfers... and provide it fully to the police agency.

MSc. Maya Diamond, a relationship and marriage consultant in Berkeley CA, USA, once shared how to recognize online love scammers: “If you haven’t met someone and they confess their love, it’s probably a scammer, especially if they haven’t made any effort to meet in real life. Another obvious sign is when the date says they’re working in another country and need money to visit us. Unfortunately, this is a trick that many people fall into, even smart, knowledgeable and successful people.”

According to ANH NHI (Vietnam Law)

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