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Dating App Dangers

A scam to beware of, and what not to send over social media.

By Brooke RosePublished 7 years ago 5 min read
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I'm writing this article so dating app users can beware of this scam from now on. A very close friend of mine, we will call him Mike, is on a few dating apps to get his name out there and meet women. So far none of them have been very successful for him. But a few weeks ago, he met a beautiful girl that was located about an hour and a half away from him. She was sweet and kind and sent tons of pictures and text messages to him throughout the day. He was so anxious to tell me about her and all the interests that they had in common. We met for lunch and he told me all about her that hour. He said that he thought he finally met someone that was worth hanging out with and not the type of girl that wants to play with his emotions.

I asked to see a picture of her and he showed me a very beautiful one, I approved of her looks as well as her personality traits. I then asked how old she was and he told me 20 which isn't a big age gap from him at all. Later that night he had texted me saying that she just sent him a message saying she was 17. Mike said he no longer wanted to have contact with her because the age difference now was just too much. She texted him all night and all throughout the morning with no responses from Mike. He then got a call from her father the following day, harassing him, saying that he saw the inappropriate pictures that he had sent to her and he was going to take him to jail for sending pictures like that to a minor.

Mike responded, saying that he only sent her a face profile picture, never anything inappropriate. Also stated that she said she was 20, then said she was 17 the previous night when he cut ties with her. The father (who had a very thick southern accent,) replied saying she was not 20 or 17, she was 16 and still in high school. Mike texting her on a school day got her phone taken away and she then got put in jail. Weird reason to go to jail, right? My friend continued to say he stopped texting her and that none of this was his fault.

The father later then sent him a photo of a males private parts, stating that that was the picture Mike had sent his daughter. Knowing that he did not send inappropriate photos, Mike stopped contact with the father. He then sent a screenshot of Mike's Facebook profile, saying that he was finding him and taking him to the police, if he didn't pay $300 to get his daughters phone shut off. After 3 days of harassment my friend finally agreed to pay him the $300 for the dad to just leave him alone. The father texted him instructions on what prepaid card to buy at Walmart and told him to send him a picture of the card and he would have the money in his account that night. So after Mike sent the photo of the card to him he asked for a text message in return with his name, date, and a message stating that there will be no more further contact after this payment. The man never replied.

The next night Mike received a text message with a photo attached of a girl's sewn up wrist. The message said "my daughter tried to commit suicide this morning with a note saying how much she loves you with your name on it stating that you were the reason she did this to herself. The police are asking me questions about who this Mike person is and where they can find him, I don't know what you want me to do, you already paid me but I may still have to turn you in." In complete and utter shock, Mike replied saying that he had only talked to this girl for about a week and that there's no way she could have done this because of him. "You can tell the police anything you want, because I didn't do anything to cause this."

The girl's father then said that the doctor suggested she should be put in rehab, and that he didn't know of a way to come up with the money to pay for that. Mike finally went to the police and told them the story. The police said that he didn't even have physical contact with this girl and that he had nothing to worry about anyways. That the man was using a burner phone and was not a father of this girl, my friend was just being used in a part of a new scam that's going around on dating websites.

I just want to put this out there for people who had no idea about these types of scams that are going around. My innocent friend got blackmailed out of $300 because of something he didn't even do. I've read further into this online and many people have said the exact same story of what has happened to Mike. The attackers try to get nude photos, or inappropriate, provocative pictures from usually males on dating sites and then pretend to be one of the parents calling saying that they are going to the police with these pictures and that they're going to be put in prison. There is no doubt in my mind that this has happened to more than a handful of people.

Many people online had said that after the suicide photo was sent to them the parent told them that they now needed to pay for rehab or therapy for their child. It sickens me how far people go to commit these types of crimes. It's honestly quite embarrassing for the people who have gone through this to tell their stories so that's why with the permission of Mike I'm able to tell his. So I'm asking everybody to please be so cautious about what they send and messages or post on social media because no matter what it is I can definitely come back to bite you.

advicehumanitytech
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About the Creator

Brooke Rose

I'm just a stay at home mom who loves writing in my spare time! I'm 22 with a very knowledgeable mind

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  • Athenaabout a year ago

    Thank you for sharing this, dating apps can be unsafe and should include background checks for users.

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