The story begins as many love stories begin in the digital age: Alejandra Brito, a Venezuelan woman, matches on a dating app with a man she finds attractive. The man tells her that she lives far away from her, in Syria, where he has been sent on a military mission. But distance is not a problem: links that begin on the Internet can endure kilometers. The problem is another.
There is something in the story of the man, who says his name is Thomas and that he is an American sergeant, that does not make sense to Alejandra. Although at this point in the story she still doesn't know it, her instinct is correct: her match from the dating app MeetMe was not who she said she was.
Catfish: common scam in dating apps
Catfishing is a type of scam in which someone impersonates another person to deceive a victim. Typically, the scammer pretending to be someone else attempts to create an emotional connection and then extorts money under various pretexts.
This is a common type of scam on dating apps. In fact, last month Enlace Latino NC shared an article about the Tinder scammer from Maldita.es, half-founder of Factchequeado; warning about the fake American sergeant who scammed women through the dating app Tinder. Precisely thanks to that article – and her own digital survival instinct – Alejandra avoided losing her money.
“As I had suspicions, I started looking for information on the internet about this supposed sergeant. That's how I came to the article where it was explained that they had already tried to scam a girl with the same profile as the man who was talking to me at that moment," he told Enlace Latino NC from Venezuela Alejandra, with a mixture of relief at having avoided being a victim of the Tinder scammer and concern about what could happen to others of.
Dating app scams: the fake sergeant
The attempts to scam Alejandra Brito and Ana, the woman who gave her testimony to Maldita.es, have many points in common and only some slight differences.
In both cases, the person who contacted them claimed to be a sergeant based in Syria named Thomas and used the profile photos of Tyler Thomas, a US military man who actually exists and has more than 40.000 followers on Instagram. Furthermore, the two presented themselves as single parents looking for a woman to help them raise their daughters: while the person who spoke with Ana said he was a widower and father of a girl, the man who spoke with Alejandra said that his wife she had left him and her two young daughters for another man.
Related: North Carolina ranks among the states with the highest risk for online dating
Promises of unconditional love on WhatsApp
Although the scammers contacted both women through different dating apps – Ana through Tinder and Alejandra through MeetMe – the two gave them their personal number and continued chatting over the phone. WhatsApp, where they received declarations of love and even proposals to start a life together.
“It was totally illogical: we had known each other a few days ago and when we started talking on WhatsApp he told me that he wanted to come to Venezuela to marry me and that we would raise his daughters together,” said Alejandra, who was aroused by such a proposal at such an early stage. the first doubts.
A briefcase with 50.000 dollars
Alejandra's doubts turned into suspicions of fraud when the alleged sergeant Tyler Thomas told her that he wanted to send a briefcase with US$50.000 to her house.
“In one of our talks I told him that I am in a difficult economic situation and he told me that he wanted to send me US$50.000 to Venezuela,” said Alejandra.
According to the false sergeant's story, he had helped a man escape from a kidnapping in Syria and in exchange he would have received that money, which he wanted to share with Alejandra to help her with her finances.
“Of course I told him that I couldn't receive all that money because it is not legal,” said Alejandra, who at that time had already read the Maldita.es note and knew that it was a scam.
“Since I read the note I told him that I was not going to receive any money and that he was a scammer. He replied that I was breaking his heart and he stopped writing to me.”
In total, the contacts between Alejandra and the alleged sergeant lasted less than 3 weeks. Unlike what happened with Ana, from whom the scammers asked for nearly US$6.500 under the pretext of obtaining a permission In order to return to his country, the relationship ended before they asked him for money.
However, Alejandra senses what the next step was: “I have heard that the type of scam is to say that they are going to send a briefcase of money, but they ask for an advance before sending it to cover some costs. Then you send them the advance and they never give you anything back.”
What to do in the event of identity theft on WhatsApp?
Both Ana and Alejandra had conversations with the scammers who used Tyler Thomas's photos on WhatsApp, but the company does not have the necessary information to know who a certain account really belongs to, says a source from Meta, the company that owns the channel. instant messaging.
In Alejandra's case, the scammers used a number starting at +62, the Indonesian telephone prefix.
“For WhatsApp, an account is a phone number. “We do not have information about the identity of the user,” he explained to Enlace Latino NC Paloma Szerman, Public Policy Manager of WhatsApp Latin America.
However, if a user suspects that someone is impersonating him/her, he/she can send evidence to support@whatsapp.com, where a group of specialists is in charge of evaluating the situation. “If applicable, we can block the account for violation to our conditions of service,” Szerman clarified.
In addition, the application allows you to block a contact to stop receiving their messages or calls. You can even report it if you are deemed to be sending problematic content.
The testimony of the real Tyler Thomas
Enlace Latino NC Tyler Thomas was contacted for an interview, but had not received a response as of press time. However, the soldier specifies on his Instagram account that he is aware that scammers use his image to deceive women on dating apps like Tinder.
“Please stop sending me messages about fake accounts. I already have it very clear,” she published on her Instagram account the soldier in one of his outstanding stories.
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How can I report my case? I was scammed with the false profile of a man who is in Oslo on an oil platform. We have been talking for 6 years. He disappeared and recently he has started to insist. I want to seek help to see if I can catch him.