MaxMind minFraud is a solution that can help detect and prevent "dating fraud". In this case, dating fraud refers to criminals who use fake identities in order to develop relationships with dating site users. Once the criminals have successfully made a connection, they will attempt to extort or scam users in a number of different ways. Dating fraud can damage the reputation of your dating site and, in some cases, devastate the lives of the victims who not only lost money, but also someone with whom they believed they developed a relationship.

What we can do to help:
The majority of these scammers reside outside the country that they claim to be. Often, they will be pretending to be people who are temporarily working abroad. By examining the geographical location of their Internet connection and matching it against where they claim to be, minFraud can help filter out basic skilled scammers. For scammers that know how to spoof their IP address, additional open proxy checks and login analysis can detect even the most sophisticated scammer.

Key features include:

• IP geolocation checks
• Open proxy checks
• Login analysis
• Scammer e-mail checks

• Easy to integrate APIs. No software to maintain.
• Reduce the number of scammers signing up for accounts
• Catch existing scammers who have already signed up or were able to bypass initial screening
• Become part of the minFraud Network

1. There are many sites that will list photos that have been used by scammers.
2. Monitor and limit the number of e-mails that a new signup may send out. They may try to bring the conversation outside of your system by spamming users.
3. If you catch a scammer signing up, do not automatically block them. Let them think that they have signed up and limit their access to the system and learn from their behaviors.
4. Educate your users about romance scams and 419 fraud.