For example, the "hang up, look up, call back" rule (or analogous rules if you are texted/emailed) is simple to remember and prevents the vast, vast majority of cases where a scammer is contacting you while pretending to be someone else (your bank, the IRS, etc.) While that wouldn't prevent this particular dating scam, there are other simple rules that could prevent these scams.
Scammers take advantage of human social instincts that developed over millennia and were based on face-to-face contacts. That's no longer viable in a remote contact world, so people need to be educated specifically on how to curb their natural instincts.
Simulacra•29m ago
baron816•19m ago
HPsquared•13m ago
akellermann•7m ago
garciasn•4m ago
> In total, Mary said she sent the man about $100,000 in cryptocurrency payments. After realizing he was a scammer, she blocked his number. He would then switch phone numbers and contact her again.
If this works anything like a real-world scenario, the scammer would connect with the mark in the app and I could only imagine it would seem perfectly benign to the app. The scammer and mark would connect off-app and then the scam would continue and get deeper.
I haven't used dating apps in 2.5y, but when I did, it was already incredibly annoying to get logged in due to the barriers they had in place (phone, social accounts, etc). At what line does an organization's responsibility end and a person's own personal responsibility begin?
I don't recall having any spam or scammers interact with me when I used them, but I have the wherewithal to detect when something is scammy. This is happening all over the Internet (LinkedIn / SMS / Email scam jobs). If anything, perhaps Congress should be working on ways to educate the public through PSAs that aren't political pieces attempting to shore up a failing leader and instead shore up the public's ability to learn how to stop the scams from swindling them out of a ridiculous amount of money.