As Valentine’s Day nears, CyberScout, a global leader in identity theft resolution, data defense and employee benefits services, is sharing a list of common romance scams for consumers to watch out for all year long. Equally as important, CyberScout encourages businesses to take proactive steps to defend themselves against online activity by their employees that could increase their risk for cybercrimes.

It’s the time of year when people dust off rose-colored glasses and get hearts in their eyes, but that can lead to scam blindness. Criminals are constantly looking for easy ways to access information, whether that’s developing a fake relationship in order to gain access to personal information or even to the organization that employs them,” said Jennifer Leuer, Chief Executive Officer, CyberScout. “At CyberScout, we work to make cybersecurity attainable in order to help protect businesses and consumers. We’re a romantic bunch here at CyberScout and we want to share a list of common scams consumers should watch out for so they don’t end up heartbroken.”

Consumer Scams:

• Flower Delivery Scams – Be aware of emails or phone calls claiming that a florist needs more information for a flower delivery from a secret admirer. Criminals are looking to capture personal and financial information for fraud and identity theft.
• Fake eCards – Sending and receiving cards in this fashion is quick and convenient, but criminals are preying on consumers by sending emails that include suspicious links that go to copycat websites similar to popular greeting card companies. By clicking on suspicious links, criminals can gain access to the information and systems available on the individual’s computer.
• Catfishing – Online dating is a popular way to meet the perfect match. However, because people can pretend to be someone else online, scammers set up fake profiles with online dating services and develop relationships with the sole purpose of accessing personal and financial information, or money. There are more well-known variations of catfishing including “The Soldier” (a criminal claims to be a servicemember), “The Hard Come-on” (a criminal quickly professes love and persuades a victim to engage on a different online platform allowing the criminal to gain access to victim’s information) and “The Mule” (a criminal convinces a victim to receive and ship a package with unknown contents or travel with the package to another country resulting in the victim potentially being arrested for trafficking stolen goods or drugs).

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