Dating Scammers, what are they, how to spot them and what to do

Online dating is a safe and enjoyable way to meet new people, as long as you keep your wits about you. The overwhelming majority of the people you will come across are exactly who they say they are. A small number are not, and the good news is that they nearly always work to the same pattern. Once you know that pattern they get a lot easier to spot. At Singles Over 60 Dating we take this seriously and work constantly to keep them off the site.

What Is A Dating Scammer?

A scammer is somebody using the site to exploit you rather than to meet you. They are not looking for a partner. They are after money, or the bank details that lead to it. It is a crime, and when it happens through a dating service it is known as romance fraud. It is worth saying plainly that being taken in by one is nothing to be ashamed of. These people do it full time, they are practised at it, and they deliberately target decent, trusting people.

This matters here more than in most countries. South Africa has become a base for organised romance scam operations, run largely out of Johannesburg and Cape Town, and reporting in 2026 has shown they specifically target older people and professionals. The aim is rarely a small amount. It is to get you to liquidate a policy, draw on your pension or take out a loan. Real cases this year have run into hundreds of thousands and in one case millions of rand, taken from a woman in her seventies over two years.

How to spot a dating scammer

The story does not quite add up
The thing to watch for is not imperfect English. This is a country with twelve official languages and most people here are writing in their second or third, so that tells you nothing at all. What gives a scammer away is inconsistency. Somebody says they have lived in Bloemfontein for thirty years but cannot name the suburb, or uses turns of phrase nobody here uses. There are also stock phrases that turn up again and again because they are copied from a script: "Hello Dear" as an opener, or oddly shaped lines like "I am George by name, I am 50 by age" and "I hope to be reading from you soon". If you have seen one of those, you have seen the script.

Fast Moving
Is somebody declaring their feelings within days, or talking about a future together before you have so much as spoken on the phone? Real affection at any age takes longer than that. Rushing you is deliberate, because the whole approach depends on getting you attached before they ask for anything.

Money Requests
Never send money to another member, however persuasive the story and however long you have been talking. The classic is the plane ticket so they can finally come and see you. Others include a medical emergency, a customs charge on a parcel, a business deal gone wrong, or being stranded somewhere. Another version runs the other way: they ask for your bank details so they can deposit an inheritance or a large sum with you for safe keeping, which is how your account ends up moving somebody else's money.

The newest version does not ask for money at all at first. Instead they mention how well they have done out of an investment, usually cryptocurrency, and offer to show you how it works. The website they steer you to looks convincing and your balance appears to grow. It is not real and you will not get it out. If anybody you have met online starts talking about investments, you can check whether a financial services provider is actually authorised on the FSCA website, and their anonymous fraud line is 0800 31 36 26.

Telltale profiles to look out for
A lot of these profiles put the person conveniently out of reach: working offshore, on a mine or a rig, serving abroad with the military, or doing aid work far away. It is a tidy explanation for why they can never meet you and why the line is always bad. Near empty profiles are worth a second look too, not because a quiet person is suspicious, but because somebody running dozens of accounts does not bother filling them in. And look properly at the photos. If they look like a modelling shoot or a stock photo, they probably are one, and a reverse image search on Google Images will often tell you in a minute.

The video call that never quite happens
Worth adding, because the technology has moved. Scammers now use AI generated video and cloned voices, so a brief, blurry video call is no longer proof of anything. What still holds is the pattern: if somebody always has a reason not to meet in person, in daylight, in a public place near where they claim to live, that is your answer.

Trust your instincts

If something feels wrong, it very probably is. You have had decades of practice at reading people, and that instinct does not stop working just because the conversation is happening on a screen. You do not need proof and you do not need to justify it to anybody. Slow down, or walk away.

Protect your privacy

If somebody pushes early on to move the conversation off the site, onto WhatsApp, email or Facebook, be careful. There is a reason for the hurry. Off our site there is no moderation, no reporting tools and no record of what was said, which is exactly the point for them. Genuine members are usually happy enough to keep chatting here until you both know each other a bit better.

How do I report a suspected scammer?

If you suspect somebody is not who they say they are, or they have given you cause for concern in any other way, scroll to the bottom of their profile and click the "Report profile" link, which looks like this:

Your report is strictly confidential and the person you report is never told about it. We would also suggest using the "Ignore" link afterwards so they cannot contact you again. Once you do, they can no longer see your profile and will most likely assume you have left the site. We will look into the report and take whatever action is needed. Please do not hold off reporting because you are not certain. We would far rather check ten hunches that come to nothing than miss one that mattered.

If you have already sent money or shared your bank details, act quickly. Contact your bank first, because speed decides whether anything can be stopped. Then open a case at your nearest police station, ask for it to be referred to the cybercrime unit, and make sure you get your CAS number so you can follow it up. There is no single national fraud hotline in South Africa, so it is worth knowing the three that matter: SAPS Crime Stop on 08600 10111 for anonymous tip-offs, Yima on 083 123 7226 for scams, and the FSCA on 0800 31 36 26 if an investment was involved.

Read more about romance scams and report one on Yima, run by the Southern African Fraud Prevention Service: https://www.yima.org.za/