Valentine's Day is just around the corner.

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, both for those in love and for those seeking it. For those in love, this could be the best day to put aside everything. Be they conflict, misunderstandings, arguments, and quarrels. Think of cherishing each other by renewing your love vows.

For those of you that are seeking to find love, Valentine's Day might be the best day to look for the perfect partner. If you've had failures in finding a partner every other day of the year, on this special lover's day, luck might be on your side.

As the new year has opened up for everybody, each one of us is poised to get something out of it, with some hoping to find good old love, once again. Where?

Online.

In 2023, the world of online dating will be no different from previous years. Lots of people still challenge themselves to find true love. Perhaps, this is the year that you have said, "It’s now or never!"

Those years when relationships soured fast, or you got into a relationship too quickly to fill up the void of being lonely, are over.

A fresh start, in which you are going to take your time to search for true love, is what you need. This time, you are not in a hurry so as not to fall into the wrong type of relationship anymore. You've matured enough not to fall blindly head over heels in love again.

And this time, you’re going to make pondered, carefully thought-through choices. This time it has to be the right choice, it has to click. According to an article in ABC7Chicago, January is the month when dating sites are at their busiest.

Dating Sunday, according to the article, is the first Sunday in the month of January, considered to be the world’s busiest day for online dating. It’s a busy day for everyone, even for romance scammers.

Online dating is a booming industry

Looking for true love in this day and age is not limited to meeting people face to face anymore. More and more people are turning to the web to find true love.

To help with this trend, there are a plethora of online dating apps and websites where you can connect with people and find love, and why not? Even true love.

Online dating is a booming industry that is not relenting. In fact, an interesting statistics reveals that,

-The global market size of online dating is $4475.28 million

-There are more than 8,000 online dating sites globally

-7.86 million users use Tinder in the US

-323 million people worldwide used dating apps

-Almost 14% of online daters marry someone they met online

-55% of LGBTQ+ adults are said to have used a dating app

-84% of online daters are looking for a romantic relationship

-24% are looking for a sexual relationship

-Around 42% of users are looking for marriage. Source

With such interesting statistics, online dating is constantly on the rise. This is made more convenient, by dating apps that can be downloaded onto handheld devices and carried around.

Tinder reigns supreme among dating apps

Among so many dating apps, Tinder, as the statistics indicate, is used by 7.8 million people in the U.S. alone. But globally, there are 75 million users in 197 countries, making it one of the most used dating apps.

Two countries, the U.S. and the UK, top the list of countries with the most users.

There is an app and a website catered to every need.

With the boom in online dating comes different dating sites and apps that cater to different age groups, but are also country-specific.

You could find love on a dating site specifically for Italians, Indians Filipinos, Christians, Jewish, or Muslims. Or you could find love based on your age.

At the end of the day, however, all you want is to have success in finding love. For example, if you are between the ages of 18- 29, Tinder, which is considered the best for casual dating, could be a good fit for you.

If your age range is between 30-64, then Match.com, which is considered the best when it comes to long-term relationships, is a good fit.

After Dating Sunday comes Valentine's Day

If love has a very special day of the year to be celebrated, then Valentine's Day is that day. But it comes after Dating Sunday, the first Sunday of January, considered the busiest day of the year for online dating.

Just like Dating Sunday, Valentine's Day is also a very busy day in online dating. According to one article, the projected total Valentine's Day spending for this year, 2023 alone, will be close to $US26 Billion.

The use of dating apps increases, and gift buying will also see enormous spikes as people rush to gift loved ones something memorable. While all of this is good and makes sense, Valentine's Day could be a target day for romance scammers. In fact, the online dating industry itself is plagued with romance scams.

Romance scams can interfere with finding love online

A romance scam is done by individuals or groups of persons who seek to lure needy individuals into a phony long-distance relationship. With a romance scam, bogey promises of love are made to needy victims to gain their trust and make the victims do the scammer's bidding unconditionally.

No threat or force is applied, only clear-cut simple persuasion. The scammer after the first few conversations knows that the victim is in dire need of someone to be in their life to love and accept them for who they are.

This makes the scammer's job quite easy because, with enough sweet words and promises of loving the victim, they quickly gain the victim’s full trust. The scammer may also make marriage proposals on the spot, giving the victim full confidence that they have really found a prince charming.

But the real aim of the scammer is to gain financial benefits from the victim. This is a slow process where the scammer first asks the victim for a small amount of money. Then they increase the amount bit by bit, all in the name of borrowing the money.

But once the money is given, it is never returned, and the scammer one day disappears, leaving the victim with their bank accounts completely dry and a broken heart. This has been an ongoing phenomenon for many years in the online dating industry.

The presence of scammers makes online dating quite scary, but people still seek love online, and this is the part that is baffling. One article reported that nearly 73,000 Americans lost $1 Billion to romance scams in 2022.

A Guardian article wrote that Britons lost about £100 million to romance scams in 2019. The story goes on and on and on, and yet people are still falling for such scams. But why?

Why people still fall for romance scams

There’s every chance that you’ve signed up on a dating site or used a dating app to find romance. You may have met a few people whom you’re considering, but in the end, one person always grabs your attention in a way that others do not.

This is because they apply sweet words and a great sense of humor. Romance scammers have it in abundance and know how to use it

Sweet words and a great sense of humor

Your profile always tells others what you are looking for in an ideal partner, and one characteristic that pops up frequently is that your ideal partner must have a great sense of humor.

They must be able to make you laugh and make you feel good about yourself. But far from making you feel good with humor, they have a way with words that is intriguing and different from what you’re used to hearing.

Everything sounds so logical all the time and above all, the words are written with care and attention towards you, so you feel that the person talking to you has your best interest at heart.

But far from sweet words and having a great sense of humor, the scammer fills up a void that was left due to the end of a previous relationship.

Loneliness

Currently, you’re single and so are free to date whomever you want. But you are lonely, and being lonely always makes you seek closeness and attention anywhere you can get it.

A scammer once they know you are lonely will always make you believe they are lonely too. As long as both of you are lonely, you have something in common, which is a good sign. Both of you can hook up, and start a relationship.

After all, when sweet words, and a good sense of humor, are added to your state of loneliness, it can be hard to get a scammer off your back because this is the romance that you have been missing for a long time but have finally found.

But hey, the scammer is off to run you dry and move on to the next victim. This is why, even on Valentine's Day, if you are seeking love online, and someone initiates a conversation with you, check out the number of times they use sweet words in their conversation.

If the words sound too good to be true, then that might be the start of a romance scam. If they tell you the platform is something they don't enjoy using, and want to take you out of it, that's a big red flag.

Conclusion

On a final note, and something that could be of interest to you, is the way the U.S. Federal Trade Commission describes scammers by the lies they tell. This is one red flag to watch out for on Valentine's Day. According to the FTC,

“...scammers pay close attention to the information you share, and don’t miss a beat, becoming your perfect match.

“You like a thing, so that’s their thing, too. You’re looking to settle down. They’re ready too. But there is one exception — you want to meet in real life, and they can’t.

To add to this is the fact that scammers may not be willing to do video calls and will most likely complain about the phone cam not working. Meeting people online and hooking up is as interesting as meeting them in real life.

The difference is that perhaps the expectation level online is intense and carries with it an aura of mystery. This makes finding love online exciting and closer to a fabled romance story typical of the movies.

Scammers are good at making you believe that you have found the perfect partner, thereby making you pour your heart and invest your resources into keeping the relationship ongoing, with the assurance that true love has finally come.