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What is an online romance scam?
Cybercriminals can strike up relationships online in order to build your trust sending emails, communicating in chat rooms, and texting you with amorous messages. After building your trust, they’ll ask for money or ask for you to help move money around.
An example of one way online romance scammers build trust.
Scammers can use different tools to create pictures of the person they are pretending to be, and even place them near specific geographic landmarks to add some believability to fake personas. It's a way to add more depth and more easily persuade you to send cash or provide your credit card information.
In the picture above, you can see an example of how easily a scammer could create a false photograph to gain your trust. A man’s face is digitally cropped out of a photograph and moved into the context of “a man in sunglasses throwing a frisbee on Mount Everest.” While not perfect, it only took a few seconds to create. With some understanding of how it all works, a sophisticated scammer could create an even better picture.
Be extra cautious when you get messages from strangers. Cybercriminals have gotten so good at pretending to be legitimate people, it’s getting harder to spot scams. AARP® Identity Theft Protection powered by Norton provides protection if your information falls into the wrong hands, your device gets infected with malware, and more.
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The full-length article was originally published on the Norton Blog. Click here to read.
