Cyber-crime is one of the down-sides of our online lives. Cyber-crime comes is lots of different variations, but the overall objective is to harvest our personal information and to steal our money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most common cyber-crime that people encounter is ‘Phishing’. Phishing is when you send a fraudulent communication pretending to be from a legitimate institution – such as a bank or a government agency – aimed at getting the user to unwittingly reveal sensitive information to you or to instal malware on their device or IT system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the type of cyber-crime that has the highest financial impact on individual victims is Romance Fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Romance Fraud is where someone uses online dating or a hook-up app to establish a connection with you, build rapport, and then plays on your loneliness, need for intimacy, or emotional blackmail to trick you into giving them money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A romance scam doesn’t have to be particularly elaborate to deliver a payoff for the fraudster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n