Every third relationship is created on the Internet. This makes the market more and more interesting for fraudsters. With false profiles, they lure seekers into chat rooms that are subject to charges.
Free chat – It works best for men who want to do things with women that are difficult to convey in the real world, says 20-year-old chat agent Darius (name changed). Some of the men are married. Others are lonely and are desperately looking for a woman for life, great love. Whatever the men crave, Darius says he can give it to them. Because that’s his job.
Darius doesn’t want to read his real name in the newspaper. It is part of a huge fraud machine on the Internet. On more and more free flirt portals companies with fake profiles fish for customers for their own paid dating sites. The companies are often located in low-wage countries in Eastern Europe. And men fall for it every day. The problem: Because the fraudsters are often hardly recognizable and the victims do not report out of shame, consumer protection is almost impossible here, says Michaela Schröder, data protection officer at the Federal Association of Consumer Centers.
Free chat is responsible for attracting new customers. To do this, he creates incorrect profiles on free services such as the mobile partner exchange Jumbo, the Baden-social network Kwick or free chat portals such as Chat for free. He likes to use a model’s photo for this. Blonde hair, deep neckline, tanned skin. Chat logs that are available in the free chat how the conversation works. Darius waits for the men to write to him. “It is important to act like a woman,” he says, writing to a potential victim: “I am lying on the bed and watching TV. What do you do?”
In reality, he is sitting in a chat center in Eastern Europe. Like many young people there, Darius speaks good German. He explains to the men that he doesn’t speak the language perfectly, that he is a student in USA – and actually comes from France.
Around five percent fake profiles
Sooner or later, Darius gets the men to sign up on another page to continue writing. “I’m being bothered too much here,” he has the beautiful model say in the chat. The user does not know that not a single woman is real on the paid page.
People like Darius are a thorn in the side of operators of flirt portals like free chat. The flirt and chat network claims to have five million users and is one of the leading flirt apps in USA .
Over 40,000 users log in every day. “We check all profiles manually, but of course you can’t honestly recognize every fake profile right away,” says Jens Kammerer, head of the talk to strangers-based company. “The tricks of these companies are becoming more and more sophisticated, so we have to be always one step ahead and constantly improve our system for detecting such cases.”
free chat, operator of the free Chat with 40,000 users a day, is also familiar with the phenomenon. “In fact, we are aware that fake profiles are always created in free Chat in order to lure users to pages that are subject to a fee,” he says. Consumer advocates warn that users of dating sites should not follow chat partners to other sites.
“Sometimes it’s disgusting”
And yet: Darius attracts up to ten men to his side every day. “Sometimes it’s disgusting,” he says. But Darius receives a commission for every new customer. He earns around 500 euros a month. That is more than the average wage in his home country. Darius not only finances his living with the money, but also his parents and his little brother.
Once the men are on the pay side, it is important that they do not become suspicious, says Darius. “You have to make specific meetings,” he says, “and name a real hotel in USA as a meeting point.” At the last minute something comes up. Over and over again. Some men do this for years. Customers have to buy special coins on the rip-off flirt sites in order to continue writing. These are available in packages of various sizes from . The more coins the user buys, the more messages he can write.
This means that companies can continue to pursue their business model in peace. “Especially since it is difficult for the victims to prove the fraud,” operator of four free chat rooms with a total of 48,000 users per day. Nevertheless, he is preparing a lawsuit for the first time. “The damage is significant,” he says. “For the users and the portals.”