Recognizing Romance Scams

Valentine's Day has come and gone, but the many scams that prey on our desire to connect or find the perfect gift for someone special continue to impact unsuspecting people year-round. Romance scams have been on the rise since the beginning of the pandemic, and scammers use a multitude of ways to steal money from unprepared people. Are you prepared to evaluate the websites pushing suspicious deals that could be too good to be true? How would you respond to an unknown text about a recent online order you made?

Having the ability to recognize the signs of an online interaction being a scam is a useful skill. Let's go over some common ways scammers get money from their victims and how to recognize the signs before you get scammed.

Websites

Illegitimate websites can take real images from other sites to appear more real. They often have the products marked down with impossible discounts, for instance seemingly high-quality items for sometimes less than 10 dollars.

There are some easy signs that a website is not legitimate:

• Are products being offered at an extreme discount?
• Is the seller requiring payment through cryptocurrency or a cash transfer app?
• Are you able to get in contact with customer service?

Trend Micro has a free tool for IOS and Android that will check the validity of websites for you if you are unsure about their legitimacy. Mozilla, who makes Firefox, has also developed a new extension to help spot fake reviews on a product. This can help protect you from getting scammed before you enter your credit card information.

Romance Scammers

Romance scammers often make up a story explaining why they are looking for love online. They lure people in and develop an emotional connection with them. A sudden tragedy has fallen upon them and they need financial support, or they have inside information about an investment opportunity that is too good to pass up. This makes it easier for unprepared people to be willing to send money, thinking they are helping someone or that the scammer is trying to help them. In 2022, the FTC said that online romance scams accounted for $1.3 billion in reported losses, compared to $200 million in 2019 and $75 million in 2016.

There are red flags to be aware of to help spot a scammer online:

• Requests for money - no honest person will ever ask for help online by asking for money via wiring money, preloaded gift cards, or cryptocurrency.
• Unsolicited messages on social media, email, or SMS from unknown people, or people you have never met in real life.
• Investment deals that sound too good to be true are probably fake.

Here are some tips to protect yourself from romance scams:

• Stick to dating apps that have safeguards to protect their users from scammers.
• Do not give out personal information such as address or phone number.
• Never give money to people you have not met in real life.
• Protect yourself by enabling 2-factor authentication and having strong passwords for the services you use.
• Report any crimes that do end up happening to the FTC and the FBI's IC3.

The Information Security team hopes that this pose will bring awareness about the ongoing scams that happen throughout the year. 

If you receive suspicious emails to your Portland State University email account, please forward them to abuse@pdx.edu.