Love is in the air, but beware…

KNYSNA – With Valen­tine’s Day just around the cor­ner on Satur­day 14 Febru­ary, love is in the air.

But don’t let your heart run away with your purse, and be espe­ci­ally wary of fraud­sters who express undying love in a cyber romance.

John Alex­an­der of Royal Inves­ti­ga­ti­ons, who spe­ci­a­li­ses in inves­ti­ga­ting such cases, has issued a war­ning ahead of Valen­tine’s Day when romance scams become incre­a­singly pre­va­lent. “Over the past year, we have obser­ved a sig­ni­fi­cant rise in romance scam cases, with online dating plat­forms being a pri­mary hun­ting ground for fraud­sters,” he said.

He war­ned the public to exe­r­cise extreme cau­tion when eng­a­ging in online dating and roman­tic inte­racti­ons during this period. “Pro­tect your heart, your emo­ti­ons, and your finan­ces. Romance should bring joy, not exploi­ta­tion,” he said.

Scam­mers

Stu­dies sho­wed that nearly 45% of users on some plat­forms may be scam­mers, often tar­ge­ting vul­ne­ra­ble indi­vi­du­als, espe­ci­ally women.

Alex­an­der said a 2024 sur­vey indi­ca­ted that 53% of men and 47% of women repor­ted being victims of romance scams.

“I would esti­mate, con­ser­va­ti­vely, that bet­ween 60% and 75% of users on dating web­si­tes are invol­ved in romance scams,” said Alex­an­der.

He said most such scams in South Africa involve per­pe­tra­tors ope­ra­ting under false iden­ti­ties, often using fake accounts and clai­ming foreign nati­o­na­li­ties.

“These cri­mi­nals exploit users’ trust and emo­ti­ons to soli­cit money, gifts or per­so­nal infor­ma­tion, with the main per­pe­tra­tors iden­ti­fied as Nige­rian nati­o­nals.”

He noted that many online dating plat­forms ope­rate free of charge to users, gene­ra­ting reve­nue through subscrip­tion fees, adver­ti­se­ments and com­mis­si­ons.

“Unfor­tu­na­tely, user safety is often secon­dary to pro­fit, lea­ving many vul­ne­ra­ble to exploi­ta­tion. Despite South Africa’s strong legal fra­me­work, inclu­ding the Cyber­crime Act, enfor­ce­ment remains limi­ted.

Inter­na­ti­o­nal plat­forms, such as Tin­der, often cite juris­dicti­o­nal chal­len­ges and do not fully com­ply with local law enfor­ce­ment or court orders, pri­o­ri­ti­sing ‘user pri­vacy’ over crime pre­ven­tion and com­bat­ting,” said Alex­an­der.