You’re browsing through a bunch of dating profiles, skipping over the creeps who use cheesy one-liners and gaudy photos when you see it: an attractive potential date with a seemingly perfect profile.
The nearly perfect dating profile has a glossy, professional-looking HDR photo of a dream man or woman. This page’s owner added quotes from famous people and poorly written one-liners but nothing else. There’s no history and there aren’t any other photos to flick through.
Sound familiar?
If a dating profile looks too good to be true, take it with a grain of salt. Regardless of the medium (dating app or website), online dating is chock-full of fake profiles. The brains behind these pages are either insecure weirdos or creepy scammers.
Here are a few “red flags” that will help you spot fake dating profiles:
1. A Profile That Says Nothing
People will take time to create a dating profile that will make them look like they’re serious about looking for love. While your potential matches don’t need to share every single detail about themselves, they should at least include a few snippets of real information, like a full name and a few photos. If a profile has virtually no content or a picture that doesn’t fit the profile, stay clear.
2. A Sketchy Career History
Don’t forget to check out the career listed on that “perfect” dating profile. If the career section says “private” or “working from home” but doesn’t say anything else, that person could be hiding that they’re unemployed. Also, someone who brags online about being super rich is usually lying. When in doubt, perform an advanced background check on the dating profile’s owner.
3. No Social Media Game
Even if you’re not a fan of Facebook or Instagram, you can still use social media to get the scoop on your dating prospects. If a dating profile displays links to a sparse social media profile, it’s probably fake. A Facebook profile with fewer than 100 friends is a red flag. You can also search Facebook for information like hometown or school to check if a profile is real or not.
4. Plagiarized Content
Scammers usually create several dating profiles that use the same generic content. Their profiles are riddled with famous quotes, cheesy pick-up lines, and broken-English one-liners. If a profile reads funny in a cliché way, avoid it.
5. Pictures That Make No Sense
You know that a profile is fake when it has a bunch of ridiculously Photoshopped photos. Fortunately, doctored images are easy to spot. Browse through the profile’s pictures and check the faces in the photos. Do they look familiar? If you’re considering meeting someone, check out their dating profile to see if it’s linked to any social media platforms to determine if the dater is using fake photos. Tinder and Bumble have options to connect to Facebook, and profiles use social media photos, so fakes are easy to spot.
6. Strange Photos
Pictures paint a thousand words, and if a dating profile has long descriptions but no images, then you’re probably reading a lie. Some people also use angled photos to hide their age, gender, body type, or face. If you see a profile that consistently uses the same few poses, then that person is probably hiding who they are.
Online dating is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get . Be aware of the signs that someone could be hiding the truth, but don’t quit the game because of a few fake dating profiles. There are plenty of authentic people out there, and if you follow these tips, you’re bound to meet one!
Author Bio: Ben is a Content Director at InfoTracer who takes a wide view from whole system. He authors guides on entire security posture, both physical and cyber. Enjoys sharing the best practices and does it the right way!
Photo by Alexa Suter on Unsplash
