General News

Every week, someone's in the news with a cautionary tale of online love gone wrong. Online dating critics are quick to point out the threat of scammers, but how big is the risk really?

Apparently a lot bigger if you live in China. A new study of the largest online dating site in China discovered hundreds of thousands of con artists, and their scams are far more intricate than simply lying about their age or adding an inch to their height.

The study, “Quit Playing Games With My Heart: Understanding Online Dating Scams”, is a collaboration between University College London and Jiayuan. Together they analyzed more than 500,000 profiles, drawn from Jiayuan’s 100 million users, which had been flagged as scam accounts.

The most popular scam – fake profiles promoting escort services – will be familiar to users of any dating service in any country. What's really interesting are the more intricate, culturally specific cons.

Take “the flower basket.” In this scam, lonely middle-aged women are targeted by “attracive mid-age men” who contact them and develop an entirely digital romantic relationship. Once a solid connection has been established, the man will imply that he wants to get married, but that his parents require a gesture of goodwill.

He'll then explain that the gesture is an expensive flower basket that can cost as much as $20,000. The man will refer his target to a florist he has teamed up with, who gives him a cut of the money after the purchase is made.

In another surprisingly ingenious scam, a female fraudster is hired by the owner of an expensive restaurant. She joins a dating site and asks a target to take her to the restaurant she's affiliated with. She'll run up an enormous tab (anywhere from $100 to $2,000) during the date, then disappear, never to be heard from again.

“The success rate of this type of scam is much higher [than traditional online scams],” write the researchers, “because the scammer leverages the desire of the victim to meet an attractive woman. In addition, it is likely that the victim will never realise that he has been scammed, since the date really happened, and the victim possibly had a good time.”

It’s also, according to the study, not strictly illegal, so the con artists involved don’t put themselves at much of a risk. That's some seriously next-level scamming.

Just be glad these shakedowns haven't made their way abroad yet. Or have they? Be on the lookout for pricey flower arrangements.

Online dating sites have long wrestled with replicating the experience of dating in real life.

Offline, the love of your life may find you at any moment. You could be standing in the produce section of the grocery store, wondering how to tell if a cantaloupe is ripe, when suddenly an attractive stranger appears to help you pick. It's all about serendipity.

Online, dating feels calculated. You'll never randomly bump into The One. But if U.K.-based Tab has anything to say about it, serendipitous meetings could soon be a part of your digital dating life.

Tab isn't a dating website. It's not a trendy new mobile app. In fact, it's a browser extension for Chrome. Every time a user opens a new tab, they're shown a potential match. If they're not intrigued by what they see, they simply carry on with business as usual. If they do feel a spark, they click a heart button. Mutual “hearts” are connected.

"Imagine you could bump into the love of your life on any corner of the Internet, just like in real life," Shib Hussain, one of Tab's co-founders, told Fast Company. "It was a light bulb moment. We were discussing how online dating is actually pretty time consuming, regardless of what platform."

“You have to actively look for people, switching from ‘not looking’ to ‘I am looking.’ And this isn’t how it is in real life," he said. "You just bump into people and it just happens."

Tab works its magic based on the profile users fill out during sign-up. The fledgling company is also testing out a more intriguing concept: matching people based on the types of sites they visit. It sounds ripe for a debate about online privacy, but the idea is interesting nonetheless.

Productivity gurus may also find fault with the extension. Tab is aimed at users over 25 who are trying to find a healthy work-life balance, but it may be hard to focus on the work part if life interrupts every time you open a new tab.

Hussain says Tab is trying to combat that issue with a simple, clean aesthetic. The design is intended to give users information quickly, with minimal annoyance or distraction, so they can get back to their busy days (and all the other tabs they have open).

So far Tab has launched in beta in the UK, and hopes to go live in the US later this year. A mobile version could also be on its way in the future.

Next time you think “I would never be stupid enough to fall for an online dating scam,” think again. According to an FBI report, Americans lost over $85 million through online dating and romance frauds last year.

It seems like common sense not to give money to a stranger you met online, but that $85 million tells a different story. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) had a busy year in 2014 and o ne budding crime trend stood out: the increased use of social media to perpetrate frauds.

“Over the last decade, the growth and popularity of social media has increased,” says the FBI report. “Social media has revolutionized the way people interact with others and has become an integral part of life for people of all ages. Criminals have exploited social media by phishing for unwary users to fall victim to their scams.”

IC3 complaint data shows 12% of the complaints submitted in 2014 contained a social media aspect, including online dating scams. Women over 40 were the worst-hit demographic, with total losses of $68,529,135. Men over 40 followed, with losses of $13,766,588, then men and women 39 and under, at $4,417,280.

The amount lost to romance scams averaged out to a whopping $14,000 per complaint.

In one particularly common scheme, scammers assume the identities of military personnel and pretending to seek relationships online. Once they've made a digital connection with someone who falsely believes them to be trustworthy, the criminals present convincing scenarios involving family tragedies, severe life circumstances, and other hardships in attempt to solicit money.

In most cases, scammers exploit their victims' personal information using compromised accounts or social engineering. The FBI offers the following advice to online daters:

• Be wary of individuals who claim the romance was destiny or fate, and you are meant to be together.
• Be cautious if an individual says they are in love with you and cannot live without you, but need you to send money so they can visit you. If you do not send money or otherwise try to help, they will claim you do not love them.
• Fraudsters typically claim to be from the United States (or your local region), but are currently overseas, or going overseas, for business or family matters.

If you see any of these signs, especially if you see more than one happening concurrently, beware. You could soon be contributing to that $85 million dollars.

A recent article in Marie Claire surveyed single men across the U.S. to ask them about the online dating profiles they come across, and what they felt women lied about most when writing their online dating profiles.

The number one thing guys think women lie about is their looks – whether it’s their weight, “athleticism,” height, or even whether or not they've posted an old picture from five years ago. Enough women have used tricks to make themselves look more “attractive” – from using old photos to Photoshopping their features to avoiding posting full-body pictures – so that men are automatically suspicious of how they portray themselves physically, and what they might be hiding. So ladies, no more cover-ups. Include recent photos, and a body shot as well as headshots. Since there are also studies on the wide range of taste men have, you should show off your “flaws” - likely, it means more dates.

Men also believe women lie about their age. Let’s face it – I think this happens for both genders, especially for men who want to date much younger women. There is an age bias in online dating, which contributes to this phenomenon, but perhaps we should all do a reality check. Do you really want to admit you lied about something so fundamental when you meet in person, especially if you really like the guy? It pays to come clean from the start, so trust won’t be an issue.

Men are also weary of women who post that they love their independence – and include lots of photos with their girlfriends as proof. If you describe yourself as "not clingy," the first thing a man will wonder is – how clingy will she be? Instead of saying this in your profile, talk about the trips you’ve taken or the things you like to do. There’s no need to prove your independence if you have it.

Perhaps thanks to the movie/ book “Gone Girl,” men also get suspicious of any woman who describes herself as “laid-back.” They immediately wonder if she’s very sensitive or highly reactive. Same thing with women who describe themselves as successful – if they have to say it, are they really? (Plus, men tend to lie about their own success.) Again, it’s best to avoid defending yourself to someone who has never met you.

The last and most important thing to note is that men don’t believe it when women say they want a “casual” relationship. When they take this statement at face value, often times, the women end up wanting more, so they avoid women who write this altogether. The important thing to remember is – be honest. If you want a relationship, you shouldn’t be afraid to admit it. In fact, it will help you weed out the ones who don’t – because you won’t succeed in changing them.

When we think of abusive relationships, we often think of adults with dysfunctional, toxic partners. However, abusive relationships among dating teens is on the rise. According to a recent study revealed at the most recent meeting of the American Psychological Association, an overwhelming 49% of teens have experienced some form of abuse in their romantic relationships.

According to an article in DatingAdvice.com, Based on 2011 and 2012 data from a Growing Up with Media survey of 1,058 teens between the ages of 14 and 20, researchers concluded that almost half of adolescents who have dated someone have been victims of violence at least once in their lives, and astoundingly, 46 percent have been the perpetrator of violence.

Abusive relationships can take on many forms, but most often when we think of abuse, we think of physical or sexual abuse. However, some types of abuse are emotional or psychological, and therefore harder to identify or understand. Such is the case with many abusive teen relationships. Roughly 21% of teen relationships in the study were found to involve sexual or physical abuse. As is more often the case, the majority of abusive relationships tend to be emotional, especially with use of digital technology to manipulate a romantic relationship.

Emotional abuse seems to account for a large majority of the study’s results as it can come in various forms ranging from verbal name-calling to psychological manipulation. This type of abuse happens often via texting and digital means, as well as in person.

Another surprising result noted in the study was that the overall rates of teen dating violence are similar for both boys and girls. Twenty-nine percent of girls and 24% of boys admitted to playing the role of both victim and abuser in their relationships. Researchers discovered there was a lot of overlap in those who had been abused and those who were victim to it.

Researchers at the American Psychological Association said that violence should be studied more specifically, instead of categorizing those in relationships as either “victims” or “abusers,” as there is more of a gray line. This lack of understanding of the whole picture can lead to ineffective prevention of violent relationships.

Researchers acknowledged that young people who experience abusive relationships are more apt to enter into adulthood with emotional challenges, such as anxiety, depression, and substance abuse issues. Almost a quarter of women who reported experiencing partner violence as adults had also experienced some type of abuse when they were young.

Tinder is looking to make a new kind of match: the kind between advertisers and consumers.

Since Tinder's launch in 2012, it has remained a largely ad-free space. Users had plenty to love about that approach, but the model was less successful for a company in need of revenue. To fix the earnings issue, Tinder is joining the trend of dating services offering purchasable ad space.

It's an expected move for Tinder, but a big one nonetheless, and it's uncertain how users will respond. On one hand, an ad-free user experience is preferable because it is seamless and free of annoyance.

On the other hand, users are hardly ignorant to the business side of the services they use. Most understand that a company like Tinder needs money in order to continue, and that selling ad space is an effective way to generate revenue. If advertising allows the app to remain free to download, it’s a reasonable concession for a customer to make.

The question becomes “How will Tinder introduce advertisements in order to minimize backlash?” The app's interface is not conducive to unobtrusive advertising. Facebook Newsfeed ads are easy to scroll past and therefore minimally disruptive, but Tinder doesn't have that option.

An advertisement slipped directly into a user's personal profile would compromise their ability to present themselves accurately on the app. Instead, Tinder will have to create ads that mimic profiles – they'll take up the entire screen, and users will swipe into and out of them. The challenge for brands will be to take advantage of this, by creating thematically relevant advertising content.

Another eye-catching strategy means using video (again with thematic relevance to users). Video could be considered unnecessarily disruptive, so brands will have to tread carefully. Knowing both their own demographic and Tinder's demographic – and making sure they align – will be key. Video ads are a riskier move for Tinder as well, as users may find them too irritating.

How users respond to these kinds of ads remains to be seen, but the experiment is an intriguing one. It’s clear that both Tinder and the advertisers are venturing into largely unexplored territory. OkCupid has seen brands successfully create thematically relevant ad content on its site, while companies like Match and Meet Me have had ads included in their applications for years, but it is still a relatively new practice.

Tinder's audience of tech-savvy millennials may also present a unique set of challenges. It will be interesting to see which strategies prove most effective for that highly sought after market.