“Love is a lot of things, but ‘safe’ isn’t one of them”.
- Mandy Hale, Author of ‘The Single Woman’.
Mandy is right. Finding love can be scary. It requires sacrifice, commitment, and a whole lot of vulnerability. And when we think we’ve found it, it can surely make us do crazy things. Just ask Romeo and Juliet!
While this “risk it all” pursuit of love makes for great drama, it’s also become a top area of exploitation among fraudsters. Between 2016 and 2021, individuals in the US lost a collective 1.3 billion dollars to romance scams, more than any other FTC category. Reported losses hit a record $547 million in 2021, which was an 80% increase compared to the year before.
Romance scams occur when a bad actor adopts a stolen or synthetic identity to gain a victim’s affection and trust. The scammer then uses the illusion of romantic interest and intimacy to manipulate the victim into sending them money or laundering money on their behalf. Talk about heartbreaking!
If you have ever watched MTV’s hit show Catfish, you know just how easy it is for individuals to impersonate someone else on the internet to build online relationships.
A catfish is a popular term to describe someone who hides behind a fake persona on the internet for online dating. They often use fake names and photographs stolen from someone else’s social media profile to build a convincing and alluring synthetic identity. Their motive? Some catfish are lonely and want nothing more than online relationships while other catfish want to manipulate the victim into sending over money. This blog focuses on the second category.
If your company only leverages risk-based authentication, finding and stopping romance-scams transactions is like finding a needle in a haystack among the influx of V-day payments. Distinguishing between legitimate money transfers and suspect ones is extremely difficult. Therefore, consider leveraging cryptographic authentication, a more preventative and deterministic approach that stops these vicious scammers before they even have the chance to ask for “favors”.
Prove’s model prevents these scammers from creating fake accounts which are established for the purpose of receiving funds from their unwitting victims. Here’s the simple but powerful three-step process:
At its core, digital authentication is all about proving that someone really is who they claim to be on the internet. Because most dating apps and social media platforms don’t authenticate their users, it’s easy to create fake profiles that fraudsters can use to trick victims.
Even more disturbing, poor identity proofing results in fraudsters creating fake accounts using data stolen from a victim. This means that catfish can convince a victim to send money to an essentially untraceable bank account.
This Valentine’s Day, be aware that romance scams are on the rise. When it comes to online dating, remember that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. To put a stop to romance scams, companies should leverage cryptographic authentication to prevent the creation of synthetic identities on all platforms.
Trusted by 1,000+ leading companies to reduce fraud and improve consumer experiences. Contact us today to learn how you can frictionlessly secure your digital consumer journey — from onboarding to ongoing transactions.
Tap the button below to read our latest white-paper on the subject as industry leaders.
Contact us to learn how leading companies are using Prove Pre-Fill to modernize the account creation process by shaving off clicks and keystrokes that kill conversion.
Get in touch to find out how we can help you identify your customers at every stage of their journey and offer them seamless and secure experiences.
Let our expert team guide you through our identity verification and authentication solutions. Select a date and time that works for you.
Find out how we can help you deliver seamless and secure customer experiences that comply with PSD2/SCA. Select a date and time that works for you.
Download Aite-Novarica Group’s full report about Prove Pre-Fill, including a product overview, customer results, and how the product works.
Download the guide now to learn how you can improve security, cut down on fraud, and create the best possible customer experience.