4 Tips from Professional Matchmaker to Empower Women to Protect Themselves Against Love Scams
Hashtag #BreakTheBias is the 2022 International Women’s Day tagline. The purpose is obvious, to create a world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination over women. Even though gender equality has been fought by women for a long time, in some cases, there’s still a tendency of judgment from society for women to get the blame.
Look at what happened to the victims of Simon Leviev (as he claimed on the show) on the trending Netflix’s documentary, The Tinder Swindler. When the female victims tried to speak up and expose the scam, many blamed them for believing in a fairy tale made-up story and being blinded by the money and luxurious lifestyle shown by Simon.
In fact, society’s judgment is not necessarily true. Based on the survey done by Asia’s #1 dating agency Lunch Actually in 2020, the result showed that the pandemic changed the type of singles in dating apps. Out of the 640 singles surveyed in Indonesia, 62% of them said they encountered more scammers.
While these love scammers have gotten more sophisticated over the years, the pattern always remains the same – their goal is to get women to be emotionally attached to them so that they would do anything for them.
In the documentary, the victims of this elaborate love scam are successful, independent and career women. They are not tricked because they are blind fooled by a luxurious lifestyle, but by the manipulative actions from Simon.
Just like most love scam victims, they too, are educated and smart women who are capable of supporting themselves. But, scammers know exactly what to say and when to say them – to get the women to trust them.
Violet Lim, co-founder and CEO of Lunch Actually, shares her 4 red flags to spot scammers on dating apps, which will help single women to be careful before putting their heart into someone they meet online.
1. They are never based in your city
When you start talking to scammers, they are always based overseas. Or in the rare scenario that they say they are, they would always go on a lot of business trips or that they are stationed overseas for work temporarily. Basically, they are always unable to arrange a meet-up with you.
2. Their profiles are usually too good to be true
These scammers would have very attractive profiles and pictures. Their photos show a luxurious lifestyle: vacations on a yacht, traveling all around the world, or posing with their sports car, and so on. Remember, nowadays everything can be rented, including luxurious stuff.
A tip for you: Go for less attractive profile photos because there’s a higher chance that they are real and genuine, instead of these scammers who seem to have the perfect photos.
