Military romance scams: why they are and how to avoid them
Military romance scams are a form of fraud that primary occurs online where scammers financially and emotionally exploit victims while pretending to be part of the military. These scammers will often use images and videos of real military personnel and claim to be deployed in an active military zone to impersonate an individual to get closer to a victim so that they can steal from them.
Where do military romance scams occur?
These types of scams are mostly done online and commonly in locations where people seek friendship, bonds, or love such as dating apps, social networks, online forums, group chats or instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber and Wechat.
How do military scams work?
Scammers will often follow a well-known playbook to con a victim. Using stolen information, they attempt build trust to draw a victim closer to them through acts of love, encouragement, and commitment. They are able to convince them through continuous lies and deceit. Once they have built a relationship with the person, they extort them for financial gain by asking for money.
What are signs of a military scam?
The general signs of a military scam are not wanting to physically communicate with a victim, emphasizing financial problems and using fake credentials. Some examples are:
Scammers will refuse to speak or video call a victim since they use a stolen identity.
Scammers will incorporate financial shortcoming in conversations such as a lack of access to their bank account or not having the funds to be able to visit a victim so that they can take advantage of this at a later time.
Scammers will make excuses for not being able to communicate with a victim because of military procedures to make it seem more convincing.
Scammers do not use official military email addresses since they do not have access to them.
How can someone protect themselves from military scams?
There are a few ways that people can prevent themselves from being targeted by a military scam:
Reverse face search the person's photo using fvces to check if the same image exists elsewhere on the internet. By doing this, you can tell if someones identity has been stolen.
Request a video call with the person to verify their identity.
Communicate only with people on platforms that perform identity verification to join.
Make friends and family aware of the relationship so that they can provide feedback about whether the person is real or not.
Check that the email address that the person uses is from an official source.
If you are in contact with someone you suspect could be a scammer, by following the protection measures above you can reduce the chance of you being exploited.