Love Hurts…Especially When Fraud Is Involved

Cybercrooks, like advertisers, want to have a broad appeal. At this time of year they adjust their scams to fit the Valentine’s Day holiday. 

Phishing can be a Valentine’s Day activity if you’re a fraudster. It involves sending emails to everyone you can reach in cyberspace asking them to log in and enter credit card information. It needs to be done immediately so that the flowers they ordered can be delivered. This strategy reaches a large target audience without much effort, because so many flowers are ordered for Valentine’s Day.

eCards are also very effective for scammers this time of year. They send a wide net of generic emails asking the recipient to click a link to a major greeting card website in order to receive a Valentine’s Day eCard. Once the victim gets to the website they are asked to download the newest version of Flashplayer. Don’t fall for it! It’s a phony eCard website. If you check the web address or URL you’ll see it’s not exactly right. If you agree to install Flashplayer you will probably actually install a Trojan that will give someone else full access to your computer.

The ultimate romantic fraud takes advantage of a victim’s desire to meet his or her soul mate. We all know at least one married couple that met online. I know several. It makes all of us think it could work for us too. Our search for true love makes us vulnerable to professional scam artists.

Scam artists create fake profiles to attract the type of victim they are trying to lure. They would like a victim who is insecure and anxious for love and romance. A perfect victim is susceptible to flattery and will not want the relationship to end. Once online contact is made, the rest is easy. These scammers spend a lot of time perfecting the techniques they use to gain the victim’s trust. The victim will think they have so much in common with their online lover. There will be complex lies. All along the fraudster will be stringing along several victims, wooing them into complacency and biding their time to the payoff.

Payoff always comes when it’s time for the face-to-face meeting. At a certain point in the relationship the next step is to meet in person. The unsuspecting victim is most vulnerable at this juncture. The fraudster will use the vast amount of information they know about the victim to craft the most promising story to bilk the victim out of money.

The scammer will say they suddenly can’t finance the trip to meet their victim. They may say they have a medical emergency themselves or with a family member for whom they need money. This is a very old and common scheme.

If you have this experience with online dating, you will know it’s a scam. You must say no! If you say no you will have some heartache and wounded pride. At least you won’t have those things plus an empty bank account.

The mail order bride scam begins with an unsolicited email, saying that, after reading your online profile you are “so interesting”. It’s very flattering, and you may not notice that the email is generic and could be sent to anyone. It’s really spam. If you answer “she” will be very nice and sincere. She will be leading a very hard life in a foreign country and she will love you and need your money. Do not send money!

Let’s not forget prisoner personals. Technically, prisoners can’t post online profiles but there are places they can mail their profile and have someone post it for them. If you answer an online personal from an inmate (why would you do this?), don’t take their word for the crime that caused their imprisonment. Prisoners often claim they committed a white collar crime, when it could be they are violent sex offenders. Yes, they lie. You should do your own research on their crime. 

Personally, I like the old fashioned approach. When my daughter marries, I hope it’s someone she’s met at church or maybe the library. Not at a bar, and definitely not online.

Gina Bliss, CPA, CFE, is a senior manager at EFP Rotenberg, LLP, Certified Public Accountants and Business Consultants, who specializes in internal audit, fraud audit, and forensic accounting. She may be reached at (585) 295-0536 or by e-mail at gblissefprotenberg [dot] com