How To Spot A Sexual Predator In Online Dating Sites
Online dating is a fast growing industry with more and more people trusting dating sites to meet potential partners. Whilst the majority of dating site users are (relatively) truthful the mechanics of meeting people online allows lots of opportunity for sexual predators.
Recent surveys have shown that 59% of internet users feel that dating websites are a good way to meet people and they are. There are many advantages to an online service such as matching politics or interests with potential dates beforehand.
However there are people who will create misleading profiles to trick people into a relationship by misrepresenting themselves.
These people are often practiced liars and will not show the normal signs of deceit when you are speaking to them. Additionally, these online predators will have discovered many new ways of creating fake evidence to back up their stories when needed beyond a fake profile.
They will often target vulnerable people, especially those who are lonely or recently had a bad breakup.
In a lot of cases you will fall completely in love with them and trust them more as a result. The relationship may be extremely romantic and caring on the face of it. There will always be tell-tale signs of deception if you know what to look for.
They might be serial daters or may even be already married.
Important Signs That They Are A Sexual Predator
They Tell You That There Is Something Very Special About Them
This is very important and is key to the lie. Predators will always tell you that there is something that makes them stand out from the crowd.
This will make them seem more attractive and desirable and gives them a better chance of tricking people.
In almost all cons there is always an element of offering the things that the person really wants. This can be love, money or fame.
People naturally will push harder to obtain it whilst ignoring the potential risks that they would have spotted otherwise.
These include:
- Outlandish stories. Tales of heroism and danger which make them seem adventurous.
- Sad stories involving the death of close family members or of losing everything. This is designed to create sympathy.
- High powered jobs.
- Rich family.
- Connections that could help you. Such as for gaining modelling contracts or meeting celebrities.
They Are Usually Unavailable
Their job or lifestyle means that they cannot see or communicate with you for large parts of the week. This gives them the time to lead their "other" life.
- There is a reluctance to call you outside of "working hours".
- Unable to meet more than once or twice a month.
They Want To Meet Quickly
They seem to want to move your relationship forward very fast. On the face of it this will be presented as a whirlwind romance.
In reality it is because speaking online is not what the sexual predator is seeking.
Crime data produced for the UK Office For National Statistics suggested 43% of first face-to-face meetings between a victim and sexual offender took place within one week of their initial contact online.
You Never Meet At Their Home
The online predator will always need to keep you away from places that give away their real life. Maybe they have a wife or their home is not as fancy as they made out.
- There is a reluctance to video call from home.
- You have never been invited to the home address.
There Is A Lack Of Evidence Or Connections To Back Up Their Story
- Never meeting their close friends and family.
- Lack of social media.
- Cropped pictures. Never showing a location or any personal identifiers.
Everything Is On Their Terms
The sexual predator is really only after one thing. If you are not providing it then you are of no use to them.
- There is a lust and demand for sexual behaviour. They could demand video or phone calls at weird times, in their car or workplace (not at home).
- Meeting you last minute on their terms.
- Irrational and aggressive attitude if not obliging to their demands.
- There is an escalation in their demands. Especially for sexual behaviour.
We were contacted by a client who had been dating a man for quite some time.
In fact she had been dating him for 8 years.
They were initially matched on a well known online dating site and within days they decided to meet.
The initial meet went well and our client quickly found herself falling in love with our subject.
He was a middle class man, living and working in Central London as a doctor. His hours were often long and time off was rare, therefore they only meet a couple of times a month.
Our subject claimed he had a reasonable amount of wealth and was actually from South America. He spoke Portuguese to a reasonable standard but rarely showed any proof of his wealth.
Throughout the eight year relationship our client started to become suspicious.
She only ever visited him at his home address once. This was indeed an apartment in central London, in a secure compound with security gates and doors. The property certainly wasn't high end expensive and they were only there for a matter of minutes.
However, our client noticed there were "signs" of a female having been there. Female clothing and feminine hygiene products. The subject made reference to having his sister to stay recently, although this had never been mentioned previously.
The client could never get him to go travel or spend any extended time with her.
She was from the South East Asia region and wanted him to travel with her on his time off. He always had an excuse and avoided the idea totally.
They would often go away for weekends too. He would always ask our Client to make the bookings, he would then give her cash.
As time went on our Client became more and more suspicious, and then decided to hire us to find out exactly who this man was.
She handed over his "name" and gave us what she thought was his apartment number and address.
We carried out a blanket sweep on the block of apartments and were able to confirm that no male of that name lived there.
We did a check on the apartment in question and could see a lone female lived there. There was no sign of our subject.
We then started to look at other apartments for "clues" and noticed a male with a similar Latino name living underneath the assumed apartment.
A closer inspection confirmed that this man had indeed lived there for many years, along with his wife.
Further checks were able to locate social media accounts for this man who had clear images of himself on these profile pictures. Our client, who at this point had gone into shock and denial, was then able to confirm this as her "man".
Once we had that information confirmed we were then able to carry out a much deeper check on this man. He was indeed of South American heritage, but was born and raised in East London. He worked for a large company in Central London within a sales type role and had been there for many years. His wife was a nurse and worked shifts, often working weekends and nights - this we believe allowed him to meet our client a couple of times a month without her knowing. He would use the nights she worked as an opportunity to visit her, as for the weekends away, we suspect he told her he was away with "mates" or the likes of.
Throughout the background check process we were also able to obtain other alias names connected to this male, some dating back to the late 1990's. There were several entries on different forums where previous victims had made reference to these alias names and warned of this mam being a complete fraud and Catfish.
Luckily for our client she never handed over any money. She never felt threatened and couldn't understand why he had done this. Although eight years of her life were wasted believing she was in love with someone who simply didn't exist.
Further to this our client was still not 100% convinced, she was in love with him after all.
So she therefore invited him round several weeks later and whilst he was in the shower she was able to take a sneak peak in his wallet, left in his jeans pocket. The names on his cards matched the male we had identified.
A very unpleasant situation all round and it was difficult for her to accept initially, but in the end she was happier that she had the truth.
This Should Be Illegal
There have been no cases such as this that have led to convictions in the UK although there are signs that this could be considered "rape by deception" in the future.
The US and Australia are potentially making moves to bring this in as law.
There are similar cases where a man was convicted for a very similar crime in Israel. A man named Eran Ben-Avraham was convicted of fraud for telling a woman he was a wealthy neurosurgeon in order to obtain a sexual relationship.
Another man, Zvi Sleiman, pretended to be a senior Israeli Housing Ministry official and promised his girlfriend an apartment.
If you would like to know more about how Background Checks can keep you safe then please visit our Background Check Page
