It is called the Tinder Forex Scam because it is developed in dating app chats. It is treacherous, compared to other scams, because it strikes both a private and personal chord.
If it has not been clear up until now, this type of scam shows that scammers can leverage all of our weaknesses, manipulate every aspect of our lives, and attack us even when we are most vulnerable.
What are Dating Apps？
Dating applications are apps that connect people looking for potential partners. Tinder, for example, is active in 140 countries and has been downloaded by more than 100 million people.
However, it is not the only dating app used by scammers looking for prey. In theory, a dating app allows you to choose someone, from anywhere in the world, you are compatible with and puts you in a position to get to know one another. In fact, it must be said that it has worked for many.
Unfortunately, for those with bad intentions, the purpose of any such tool is to make easy money.
How the Scam Develops
The scammer acts like any person on Tinder would, responding to messages and phone calls, sending photos and videos, presenting themselves as available and affable. In other words, they seem to have a sincere interest in the targeted person. It actually seems like a very normal connection that deserves to be deepened; also, because it is never vulgar or unpleasant.
The scammer usually portrays themselves as a good-looking and successful person who is ready to share the secrets of considerable wealth with their new “friend.” To complete the package is this affinity with someone who has knowledge of financial secrets.
As time passes, one's normal defenses lower, laying the path for – from the onset – the real goal: to convince people to invest in a product designed to steal their money.
The scammer does not insist. Perhaps they make a proposal, but then they will not talk about it again until another occasion. The aim is to intrigue and make the targeted person curious, in a gentle way, by proposing an irresistible deal but leaving them free to choose whether to take advantage of it or not. Until the targeted person finds no valid objections to refuse.
As is the case of normal online dating, you do not know who is really hiding behind a profile. You do not even know if it is a man or a woman. Not only could they be of a different gender to what they claim, it could be a profile run by a group of people. Even if they are who they say they are, they might not be telling the truth about themselves.
Most scammed persons speak about (supposedly) beautiful Chinese women surrounded by cars and luxury items. They are probably not women nor Chinese, but evidently, in the collective imagination, a beautiful and successful Asian woman attracts attention and inspires confidence. Among other things, as businesswomen, who constantly travel, they can avoid, with plausible excuses, the logical request for video chats by the interlocutors.
But it is not only men who have been targeted by scammers. Women have also been targeted through profiles of interesting and charming men, which have the sole purpose of inducing one to make incautious investments.
Various ways of doing so have emerged from testimonies.
First of all, the interest in Forex investments is stimulated. When a victim is willing to trade, but has no experience, the scammer offers to let them practice on a demo account. Demo trading accounts allow people to invest virtual money in an environment with real-time commodity prices and currency movements. Undoubtedly, the broker who runs the account is specifically selected.
The brokers are in fact part of the scam and have a fake Forex server running that they can manipulate as they wish.
The victims are guided through everything by the interlocutor and all payments, with subsequent checks on the performance of the investment, are made together.
On the other hand, those who have already invested are instead diverted directly to the expert, the same “expert” who supposedly made the “friend” rich, to speak straight to them.
At this point, one would receive an IBAN to which one would deposit money to invest.
One would hardly be told to write the real reason for the investment to avoid controls by the bank.
The most careful scammers create a site, or an app, and operate the server so that everything looks the way they want it to.
One would then see the money paid in vary in price as predicted by a relative or by the well-informed, expert friend. In a short time, it would appear that the money paid in has made thousands of dollars; but none of it is real.
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