“Catfishing” sounds like an exciting hobby, but language can sometimes conceal the insidious nature of abuse. Perpetrators reel in victims by deceiving and manipulating them, pretending to be someone else and preying on their vulnerabilities to create emotional dependency. Then, when they have been duped into a relationship, they extract something from them – money or emotional pain. At least one in five people surveyed by BetMinded last year said they have been the victim of catfishing
Financial gain is often the driving force behind online dating scams. In the first quarter of 2021, romance fraud cost UK dating app users more than £73.9m according to Action Fraud, with online dating scams up a staggering 40% since the pandemic. A man was jailed for 12 months for lying about his identity and scamming two women out of out of more than £345,000.
