Consider carefully the advice on before making any plans. Scamwatch strongly recommends you do not travel overseas to meet someone you have never met before.

If you agree to meet a prospective partner in person, tell family and friends where you are going.

Scammers are known to blackmail their targets using compromising material.

Be cautious when sharing personal pictures or videos with prospective partners, especially if you’ve never met them before.

Be alert to things like spelling and grammar mistakes, inconsistencies in their stories and others signs that it’s a scam like their camera never working if you want to Skype each other.

You can use image search services such as Google or TinEye.

Do an image search of your admirer to help determine if they really are who they say they are.

Try to remove the emotion from your decision making no matter how caring or persistent the ‘prospective partner’ is.

Always consider the possibility that the approach may be a scam, particularly if the warning signs listed above appear.Never send money to someone you haven’t met in person. They don’t keep their promises and always have an excuse for why they can't travel to meet you and why they always need more money.If you do send money, they continue to ask you to send more. If you don’t send money straight away, their messages and calls become more desperate, persistent or direct.Their messages are often poorly written, vague and escalate quickly from introduction to love. After gaining your trust – often waiting weeks, months or even years – they tell you an elaborate story and ask for money, gifts or your bank account/credit card details.For example, their profile picture looks different to their description of themselves, or they say they are university educated but their English is poor. Their profile on the internet dating website or their Facebook page is not consistent with what they tell you.If you met on a dating site they will try and move you away from the site and communicate via chat or email. You meet someone online and after just a few contacts they profess strong feelings for you, and ask to chat with you privately.Georgina's Facebook fiancé leaves her flat broke Warning signs You might even be asked to accept money into your bank account and then transfer it to someone else. Alternatively they may ask you to buy the goods yourself and send them somewhere. They will invent some reason why they need you to send the goods but this is just a way for them to cover up their criminal activity. Sometimes the scammer will send you valuable items such as laptop computers and mobile phones, and ask you to resend them somewhere. The scammer may also claim they want to travel to visit you, but cannot afford it unless you are able to lend them money to cover flights or other travel expenses. For example, they may claim to have a severely ill family member who requires immediate medical attention such as an expensive operation, or they may claim financial hardship due to an unfortunate run of bad luck such as a failed business or mugging in the street. Often the scammer will pretend to need the money for some sort of personal emergency. They may also ask you to send pictures or videos of yourself, possibly of an intimate nature. Once they have gained your trust and your defences are down, they will ask you (either subtly or directly) for money, gifts or your banking/credit card details.

Scammers will go to great lengths to gain your interest and trust, such as showering you with loving words, sharing ‘personal information’ and even sending you gifts. They may take months to build what may feel like the romance of a lifetime and may even pretend to book flights to visit you, but never actually come. They often claim to be from Australia or another western country, but travelling or working overseas. They may use a fictional name, or falsely take on the identities of real, trusted people such as military personnel, aid workers or professionals working abroad.ĭating and romance scammers will express strong emotions for you in a relatively short period of time, and will suggest you move the relationship away from the website to a more private channel, such as phone, email or instant messaging. Scammers typically create fake online profiles designed to lure you in. About Scamwatch Expand submenu for 'About Scamwatch'.News & alerts Expand submenu for 'News & alerts'.Scam statistics Expand submenu for 'Scam statistics'.Attempts to gain your personal information.Types of scams Expand submenu for 'Types of scams'.

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