In 2005 alone, 25% percent of rapists used online dating sites to find their victims

Let me repeat that: twenty-five percent of rapists used online dating sites to find their victims. Each year internet predators commit more than 16,000 abductions, 100 murders and thousands of rapes, according to InternetPredatorStat.homestead

Tyler Cohen Wood is an expert in social media and cyber pop over to this site issues. She is a Cyber Branch Chief for an Intelligence Agency within the Department of Defense (DoD). She is the author of the book – Catching the Catfishers: Disarm the Online Pretenders, Predators and Perpetrators Who Are Out to Ruin Your Life. It outlines some typical characteristics and warning signs of an online scammer and offer suggestions on how to protect yourself from catfishers. . .

If a person makes excuses every time you want to SKYPE, it is a red flag. Be concerned if the area code of their cell number is a not listed in the domestic list of area codes. Areas codes that start with 473, 809, 284, 649, 654 and 876 are international, and are known to have been used for scams. Also be aware if there is a very bad connection every time you speak to them (such as a poor international connection) or no voice mail is attached to the number.

Almost everyone in the United States has some sort of Internet presence. It is very rare that someone would have no Internet presence at all. If you do basic research, such as conducting a search using a portal such as WhitePages , Spokeo or by looking through social media sites, and can’t find anything about this person, that is a red flag. Most professionals will at least have a LinkedIn page. If you cannot find anything on the Internet about a person, they might not be telling you their real name, which is again, a red flag.

Do some reconnaissance by using search engines to find public records- intelius, or publicrecords.searchsystems.net. If a person says they own a house, you will be able to easily see where it is and how long they have lived there. You can also find legal documents like bankruptcy filings, divorce records and death records. It is well worth the ten dollars to spend on a Spokeo membership to learn the truth about a scammer.

The good news is that you can protect yourself by learning how to spot a phony while dating online

When people are communicating online, ask to be sent a selfie, right then. If they refuse, or make some excuse, that is a red flag. If they have only sent you one or two photos, it is likely that they stole that photo from someone else’s Facebook page or from elsewhere on the Internet. Don’t be fooled by photos of kids or an elderly Mom. Do a reverse image Google search- right-click on their photos, copy the URL, and paste in the box at images.google. Google will then search for other sources of that image online.

5. How many “real” friends and work colleagues are on this person’s social media sites? How many people communicate with this catfisher?

Using SYPE, Facetime, Google Hangouts or even Snapchat with a person that you meet online is normal practice in online dating

You can get to know a lot about a person’s friends and family based on the banter they engage in on social media. How many posts are started by the potential catfisher? How many responses? Do they tag their photographs? On LinkedIn, do they have colleagues who have endorsed them? I even ask their LinkedIn colleagues if they know this person, yes, I really did that!