Ronin December 10, 2016

Romance Scams generate headlines. They create financial damage and emotional pain in their wake. The Age or Date Verification Scam is widespread. I believe it is the most pervasive Online Dating Scam, with thousands of attempts daily. And some unknown number – possibly hundreds of people caught by it daily.

A Quick Tour of the Date Verification Scam

When searching personals, or on a dating site someone responds to you. They asked you to verify yourself for their safety.

They direct their victim to a date verification website that states clearly that there is no charge for the service

The website has purposefully hidden or hard to find charges that sign up the victim for a rotating set of dating or pornography sites.

The victim is not aware of the charges until the $40 to $170 per month charge appears on their credit card statement.

This article will explain exactly what happens. This is a high-risk situation and signing up exposes the person to identity theft. I give advice at the end of the article to help anyone caught by this scam.

Because this is a complex scam, I have posted a video at the end of the post to illustrate the deception. This should help a you fraud investigator clearly see the scam in action.

The Age and Date Verification Scam

The scenario in this article is a common online datingHookup scam. A person wants to meet you but wants you to visit a free verification site, for their safety. It is important to note that these scams abound on online dating sites and applications. You could have been on Plenty of Fish, Tinder, Baddoo, or KiK, or wherever. The truth is that even the most reputable online dating sites have scammers lurking in them. Skip the Games is also rife with this scam.

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Let’s start at the beginning, so you can understand what is going on…

The Scam Post

You see a person that interests you, and you send them an email or a text. In response, your “date” provides you a way to contact them. The most common is for the person to offer an email address to contact them away from the platform you are on. The reason for this is simple – this puts you into the robot (Bot) script of an automated email process.

Occasionally there is a person on the other end, but who and where they are not what they seem. Usually, there is no real person on the other end of those emails. It is a simulated conversation, and if you pay close attention, it is always a little off. The bot doesn’t quite answer a question or takes the conversation in a different direction.

The bot expresses interests and creates an artificial banter. After a few emails that include suggestive pictures, your date gives you a link to a website with “her” profile.

What you see on the scam website

The website presents a page that shows fake information about a woman, whom you can meet, but first you must verify. The first technique of the deception is prominent and repeated declarations that this is a free service. The site might refer to a murder someone met on an online dating site, or your texting partner might say something more generic, they have had a bad experience.

This is what you will see in the sign-up area:

After you type in the information, the page changes, and it looks like this:

What you cannot see…

Thru use of a web programming command called iframe, you are entering your credit card information on another website without you knowing it. In the instance used for this demo, the site has a gibberish name – gfndat.com (Go Find Dates). The second page looks like the below. Take note of the difference in the grey areas of the web page:

Here is the important part of the fine print:

Your access to Dates.Hookup includes a 2-day free trial promo to Go Find Dates. If you choose to remain a member of Go Find Dates beyond the trial period, your membership will renew at thirty nine dollars and ninety nine cents.

It doesn’t say it here, but that $39.99 is a per month charge.

The way that the scam site uses the iframe command, you cannot see the fine print, you have no ability to see it – unless you go to the source code, and click on the iframe link. This is something that the average consumer could not know how to do. I don’t want to get too technical, but the proof is in the code. Here is a picture of the iframe command from the website code, with my emphasis:

The “src” shows the website that is controlling the content of the site. The “width” and “height” (number of screen pixels) shows only a part of the target page. The “scrolling=no” prevents you from scrolling to the part of the page that you cannot see.

Online Dating – Date Verification Scam Video

This video takes a look at where these scams originate and how they work, and some of the tricks they use to scam you.

Video

A Click Generator

This is how you get from the “free verification” scam website to the dating website. In the above example, uetrk.com is some sort of pay per click or per action aggregator – a click generator that sends you thru other sites that select the dating sites where you are really typing your information. The dating sites rotate. The click generator connects to a different dating site each time someone uses the date verification site.

White Label and Branded Dating Sites

Eventually, the path from the click generator lands the billing page of what I am calling a Branded Dating Company (sometimes called private label). That site is (supposedly) targeted towards a specific demographic, such as“FarmersMeetandDate.com”. Alternatively, sites have a theme such as “StrongLoveNeverDies.com”.

The branded site is really a façade for a White Label Dating Service Company. The way it works is that the White Label company provides an aggregated membership database, and operations for the website and billing. Individual entrepreneurs create their own company brand and website theme. The white label company collects the payment from new members as they sign up to the website. They take their service charge off the top, then pass the remainder to the branded site owner.

Each of these Branded Dating companies, will have two sites. The click generator directs you to the billing site sign-up page. This site has a seemingly gibberish name, for example, Stgved.com is the sign-up and billing website for Strong Love Never Dies; frmrsmt.com is FarmersMeetandDate.com. When it appears on your credit card bill, it will use the billing site, followed by a toll-free number. These gibberish-named sites serve as both the billing, as well as the customer service web page, where you can cancel the subscription.

There’s Lots of them. Lots and lots of them.

My investigation has found more than 500 branded dating sites. Also, the click generator can route you down a pornography path, depending on which click generator is active in the Date Verification scam site. Instead of landing on a branded dating billing and signup page, you land a branded pornography sign up page. There are more than 900 branded pornography sites. The billing site names are innocuous and nondescript like billkrew.com or createpmt.com. The corresponding pornography sites are explicit and mostly X-rated, so I will just leave it to the imagination.

The Branded Dating Billing site (the gibberish name), is a boilerplate web page that targets handling disputes to the charges. It is clear they know people are being charged without their knowledge. They discourage you from disputing the charges with your bank, and they want to handle it themselves. They do this for two reasons: 1) It provides an opportunity to convince you that you are responsible for the charge. 2) Avoid having their merchant account suspended.

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What Happens Next

A few things. If you sign up for the site, you will not meet the girl – There is no girl. You will receive multiple emails that encourage you to sign up. Next the bot will send several spammy emails for you to join other hookup sites. Then the scammers sell your email to spam marketers.

Sometimes the scammer will send an email that gives you a credit card number, including a Card Verification Value (CVV) and expiration date. I don’t know what happens if you attempt to use that credit card. What I do know, is that using a credit card that you are not authorized to use would be a felony. Using the card exposes you to blackmail.

If you did sign up…

You are going to get a monthly charge on your credit card. Anywhere from $40 to $170 per month. Often, “bonus offers” are hidden with the other charges. They follow the same pattern of a free trial period, followed by an expensive monthly subscription.

Some sites will have instructions to check your email. The email supposedly articulates the charges.

I have yet to hear from someone who states they received such an email. Even if they did, there are a few problems.

Any email from these sites is likely to end up in the spam folder.
Because the customer wasn’t aware there would be charges, they might not even open the email -or- you might see it as spam and just delete it.
There is no confirmation of the email in the sign-up. A typo would prevent the email going to the right person.

The Charge on the credit card statement

The average unsuspecting customer opens their credit card statement and sees a $39.99 charge from a strange website. The charge, which could be 30 days old or more is completely unfamiliar to them. They might not be able to go back in their browser to see where it might have originated – the Date Verification site would be recorded but if the customer doesn’t keep more than 30 days of history, its gone leaving the customer befuddled. The gibberish site will not appear in their history at all until they visit it.

Who operates these sites?

Date Verification Scam Sites

These sites operate outside of the US. When I first started investigating this scam, they usually came from Bangladesh and did not register anonymously. More and more, perhaps due to my blog, they register anonymously. Here is a recently active scam site that is not registered anonymously. Ahsraf Tarafdar, from Dhaka, Bangladesh owns this site:

I am sure Ashraf doesn’t expect the FTC to show up in Dhaka. Probably a safe assumption.

Owner information is from whois functions readily available on the Internet. I like to use cqcounter.com. Their whois function combines hosting, geography and registration information in one page.

Click Generators

I have found several different generators. The owners register most of the sites anonymously. Registries are in China, the United States and Panama.

Uetrk.com – Shifeng Huang, PRC
Tgtrak.com – Anonymous, USA
go2cloud.org – Lee Brown, Seattle WA, USA
joincheckout.com – Anonymous, Panama
Dateverifytracking – Anonymous, Panama

Branded Dating Sites

Shell companies in the UK and Cyprus own most of the Branded Sites. There are also companies in Malta, Spain, and the Netherlands.

The companies register most of the branded sites anonymously. However, it is possible to go to the billing site and get the company name and address. From that information, it is possible to look up the person in the U.K. Companies House Directory. Companies House is the official filing for companies in the UK.

My all-time favorite is the owner of Go Find Dates

Fluffy Bunnies Limited, Marston Moretaine Bedford, England
Natasha Layal-Singh Director

Really, Natasha from Fluffy Bunnies, I couldn’t make this up if I tried. She is quite a lovely woman. No Natasha, the internet is not anonymous.

With some poking around, it is possible to find the owners of companies in Spain and Cyprus. One such company I found was Kasho Holding limited, Nicosia Cyprus. The owner is Vlad Bulgariu – (a Romanian Surname). One of the other tricks I use is using the DomainBigData website to cross index and find what sites an individual or company owns. Vlad owns at least 8 branded dating sites:

No need to pick on Vlad alone. Remember he is just one example.

The White Label Dating Company

Unknown.

By looking at the IP address of the dating billing sites I can see 3 different locations. This could be one company with distributed operations or 3 different companies. The other clue is the fact that there are so many sites, that it must be concluded that it is not a small fly-by-night operation – it has to be substantial to handle the internet traffic. For customer service, the white label company uses an outsourced call center provider.

The Panama Connection

A lot of the owners register their sites anonymously in Panama. Registrations and hosting services are business expenses. Shell companies are often ways of masking or hiding income. I contacted the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (The Panama Papers people) to see if they had any information in this area. I never received any type of response. It was a long shot.

The Branded Dating Sites Purposefully Hide Themselves

Typically, if you have a web site that you want people to visit, you take measures to help search engines find you. The subject of Search Engine Optimization is complex, and people make a living off of it – far beyond the scope of this article. The best way is via illustration. If you search “online dating”, Google will return Match.com and OKCupid.com at the top of the organic search results. (There will be some paid and relevant news items first.) They do this by putting program code on their website that helps the search engine understand what it is seeing, and provide the most valuable results to the user.

Contrast that to these branded dating sites. They take specif action to tell search engines not to find them in the robots file (robots.txt) . I don’t want to get too technical, but the proof is in the code. Here is the code from strongloveneverdies.com/robots.txt:

User-agent: * Disallow: /

The first line an instruction that this section applies to all search engines. The second line tells a search engine to not index any pages on this site. This is not a default setting in a website. This website owners create this code.

If you search the exact phrase, “Strong Love Never Dies”, you would normally find this site somewhere in the search results. However because the site owners have instructed the search engines not to find them, it does not appear anywhere in the search results.

Similarly, if you owned the site “FarmersMeetandDate.com”, you would want to be found if someone searched “Date a farmer” or “single farmers”.

Obviously, I cannot look at 1400 sites, but I have looked at a few dozen. They are all the same.

The obvious question is why. I will leave you to decide given in the context of this article.

Designed for Deception

The website owners build the web page to be used this way. The pictures in “what you cannot see” (above) show the entire web page. That web page, where you are really typing your information, contains only the basic data entry elements and the hidden text. Contrast that to any website where you are signing up for a service, where you have a full page of content that describes where you are and what you are doing. Therefore, it can be concluded that the owner of the Branded Dating site created a page specifically for someone else to use to sign up to their site. It is the key enabler of this deception.

The primary deception techniques are:

A social validation by using logo’s from mainstream media sources. Umm… no that never happened.
Multiple statements that you will not be charged.
An iframe command that completely hides the fact that you are connected to an underlying dating or pornography site.

Other ways to deceive

Here are other common techniques used by these sites to deceive you:

Fake location of the person you are meeting. The sites use a geolocation service that looks at your internet protocol (IP) address and displays the city or area code where you connect to the internet. This makes it appear as if the woman is near you. A person across the country would see the same woman as near them as well.

Disguised small print terms and conditions hyperlink. Most sites you cannot see this link. When you can, it is very small. Sometimes they take overt actions so it doesn’t look like something you can click on. A hyperlink appears in blue text by default, but these sites will override that and make it blend in to the surrounding text.

Spelling out the amount of the charge. Spelling out thirty nine dollars and ninety nine cents, blends in and you don’t notice it. Numbers, like $39.99 are easy to see in a paragraph of text. Again, on most sites, you cannot even see this part of the page.

Disguising Checkbox Selections. These sites sometimes have a checkbox that is pre-checked for you to sign up for their premium service that does not look like a checkbox. That checkbox for the “premium” service is the justification the site uses to sign you up for the trial period offer and charge your credit card.

Whack a Mole

The Branded Dating sites and click generators are fairly static. There is no telling how many of the Date Verification sites there are. They come and go. As one site goes down, another pops up. The hosting company might take down a site if they receive a complaint. The owner will abandon a site when there is insufficient traffic. Eventually, Google flags these sites as dangerous. The scammer just starts another site: “CraigslistFreeHookup.com” becomes “FreeCraigslistHookup.com”. Often they will keep the same site name and title but the actual site and address (URL) will change. “Free Craigslist Hookup Verification” could appear in dozens of scam websites. They have a sort of brand themselves. This is just an easy way for the scammer to create a new site. They copy the code from one site to the next, typos and all.

Widespread

Each of the sites individually, only have a small amount of traffic. Assembling the web traffic from each of the billing sites that I am aware of, cumulatively they receive about 55,000 clicks per day. This will be two kinds of traffic:

People directed to sign up
Victims investigating the strange charge on their credit card statement

I cannot determine how many people are caught in the scam from this data. I can guess based on the number of people who search for these sites and click on my website. The search pattern and number of clicks is confidential, but it is more than 100 per day.

Obfuscation and Plausible Deniability

There is never a direct connection between the Date Verification scam and the Branded Dating site.

Here is an example of how the connections operate. This is a trace from the click generator uetrk.com in the above example

You can see there are a few middle-man type operations here. Eventually the click generator directs the customer to the branded dating site. I this instance, the site is hrtpndgliv.com, the billing site for heartpoundinglove.com.

This arrangement will have multiple benefits. First, it generates traffic from multiple sources. Sources are interchangeable. Most importantly, there is no connection between the Branded Dating site owner and the date verification site. Natasha Layal-Singh from Fluffy Bunnies doesn’t know Asraf Tarafdar in Dhaka.

Thanks to this handy tool, https://wheregoes.com

A High-Risk Privacy Policy

The privacy policy on these sites is alarming. They are all the same. Here are the important snips from gfndat.com:

“Personal information may include such information as your name, email address, mailing addresses, financial information, birthdates and information collected electronically via cookies.”

“This site may share your personal information including your IP Address, your e-mail address with its affiliates and third parties.”

“All consumers should consider any information provided to or collected by the Site as non-confidential, and consequently the Site assumes no liability or responsibility if any information relating to any consumer is intercepted and/or used by an unintended recipient.”

Remember that all of these companies are outside of the U.S. and do not view themselves as subject to U.S. jurisdiction. They are probably wrong in that assumption. The general rule of international jurisdiction is if you are doing business in a country you are subject to their laws and you cannot use a disclaimer to get out of it. Companies in the U.S. host the branded sites. Regardless, it means that the sites do not follow the precautionary security measures that are required by most states in the U.S. Nor do they follow the required actions if there is a security breach of customer information.

There is no spoon

There is no age or date verification. The woman is a bot with a stolen picture. A TinEye reverse image search might produce results of the same picture in multiple places around the internet.

The site that purports itself as a date verification service, is nothing more than a shell of a web page that redirects you to a Branded Dating or Branded Pornography site. The dating websites do not state that they perform a background check. In some cases, if you dig deep enough you find that the sites have specific terms that state that they do not check the backgrounds of their members.

In order to see what the site operators had to say about verification, I very politely asked via the customer service email if there was any background checks on their members. I sent 7 emails to 7 different sites (they are all CS@credit card charge name.com). I did not receive any responses.

If you have been caught in this Scam

First, you are not alone. By analyzing search data of my site I know that there are thousands of people in the same situation. You might be a little embarrassed.

Let’s summarize what happened:

Someone you met online pretended to be interested in you. Most of the conversation was probably a bot.
The website states that it is a free service (repeatedly).
There is no verification.
The Date Verification scam website sent you to a different website without you knowing it.
The website hides the credit card charge from you.
Some unknown entity has your credit card and personal information.

A reasonable finding of facts would conclude this is fraud.

This is a high risk situation. I am sure that Vlad the Romanian is a fine upstanding Cypriot, and that Natasha from Fluffy Bunnies is the quite proper British subject, but you do not want them having your personal and financial information.

What to do now

Call your bank, cancel your credit card and get a new one.
Ask your bank if you are in the the card updater service, and tell them you want to opt out
If you have a credit card bill, go to the site on your bill cancel the service, and tell then you want your money refunded
If the site will not refund your money, call your bank and tell them you want to dispute the charges.
Last but not least, sign up for an Identity Theft Protection service

Note that this updated list of actions varies slightly from the video, as it was made a couple years ago. In the US, you will need to attempt to work with the company before asking your bank to dispute the charges.

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126 Comments

Chris Chambers
February 3, 2021 - 2:10 pm

Nice info. Heres a mistake I made. Discreet dating . I used pay
al to get a number from a girl from Tinder , who said I wouldnt be charged. I went through and paid $25 with paypal. I got an email from communitydiscreet@ gmail telling me to click a confirmation link in Paypal and they would give me her number. I never heard of Paypal having a link like this, so I figured it was a scam and filed a case against them. I lost the case because I filed it for an unauthorized transaction and because I clicked the link it was authorized. I then get an email from the discreet community saying since I filed a case against the, they are fining me $2000 and provide a number to call . I blocked their email and did not go to the link. I now am getting phone calls from them claiming they have my SS number and are going to file legal acton against me if I dont call and pay $2000. I blocked that number. Should I contact the police? They are using some local number , which I believe is not actually the number they are calling from .

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  February 4, 2021 - 12:22 am
  
  It sounds like scam and blackmail, so I would contact law enforcement. I would not have any contact with them. Unless you gave them your SSN, they dont have it. Do you have the link / where you paid?
KMack
January 30, 2021 - 7:24 am

Hello,.very informative piece of writing! Thank you for taking the time to help unsuspecting victims of fraud and scammers. I recently talked with a women who I met off of Plenty of Fish. She seemed very normal at first asking me about my interests, my job, and my relationship status. After asking the question, “what are you looking for?”, her responses started feeling very over the top and obvious. She said she was bored and looking for a NSA situation. She then started to explain that she was a camgirl and she hoped I didnt look at her differently because of it. I played along and said no I didnt mind. She then said she was super horny and wanted to give me a private show. Alls I had to do was register, get a username, and let her know what it was. She said it only cost $2 to register and once I did she would allow me into her private show. I tried knowing my bank would not allow the charge without verification in an email they send me. I told her I tried registering but it’s being declined. She even asked of I got an email from my bank regarding verifying the charge. I said yes but my bank says the website is risky. In the email my bank sent, the amount attempted to be charged was not $2……it was $39.99. I told her and she said she had a personal code that would drop the charge to $2. She then asked me to verify the charge with my bank because she is about to start the cam show with or without me. I told her than she could start without me because this was just all a scam to steal my money or my card info. She then got defensive but I ignored her still. After a while, she texted back trying to be sweet and apologizing but still trying to get me to fall for the scam. Just a heads up for other people out there. Stay away from this women attempting this scam. As well as, stay away from this website……hookupsinvite .com. The top of the page will say Free Invite Cams, as well. Be on alert at all times, guys. Especially if you are on dating websites. The scammers are everywhere and they change their schemes and tactics alot. If it sounds to good to be true, than it most likely is. Women who are real normally will not tell you they are bored, horny, and want sex within 5 minutes of first contact. So if it seems off and too easy, run and dont look back.

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  January 31, 2021 - 1:39 pm
  
  thanks for the note, good heads up
Marcel
August 26, 2020 - 3:44 pm

Hi,

First of all, kudos for the very informative and useful Post. It’s both clear and yet very detailed.

Just to throw in my 2 cents, I also almost fell for it. Very similar situation with most people here but I’ll explain briefly so others can benefit from it:
1) good looking girl on tinder, location not too far. Wrote a (too easy) riddle to decipher her phone number and contact her directly on WhatsApp.
2) contacted “her” on WhatsApp and chatted. Lives nearby, single with 2 kids, wants to meet for “fun”.
3) gives 3 rules: 1. Condom. 2. No cum in mouth. 3. Must verify to protect her safety. Warns me that the website will require CC details.but with her vip membership, I won’t be charged.
4) I said I don’t put my CC details on unknown sites but will have a look.
She replies with link + “VIP code” plus more pics of her…

At this stage I realize the pics don’t match with said location (no gardens with pools where I live!!) and decided.to check online about potential scam. Your website.was.the clearest and most comprehensive but took a while to find… I wish you were.placed.1st.on Google when looking for Online Verification Scam, tbh!

Btw, the scam site URL is : http://www.freememberaccount.com
Site looks very legit and deceptive.
Men (and women) beware!!

Once again, congrats and thanks for your great article.

Cheers

Reply
James
May 25, 2020 - 9:19 pm

Wow! You have done an incredible amount of research here. Excellent job, well done! I almost fell for this exact scam but didn’t put in my credit card details. Your site absolutely confirmed everything I suspected. Thanks.

Reply
davidbslowemotion@gmail.com
April 23, 2020 - 11:39 pm

I’ve called their number only to hear promotions & to call these different numbers. Can’t reach their support or their legal department. I won’t do this again

Reply
aaron hendrix
March 10, 2020 - 5:11 pm

thanku

Reply
Dave
March 3, 2020 - 6:46 pm

Have you done any research on the “Pay me” first then I will meet you? She wanted half the money up front from PayPal – and I said well you meet me there, sit in your car (so I can see she is real) then I will send the payment – she says “thats not the way it works” and don’t waste my time! What a fu***** bitch or bot – who knows. Thx

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  March 3, 2020 - 9:23 pm
  
  I have not, but I have seen in other forums people being scammed in this manner. I have seen gift cards too, where you take a pic of the card and send it to “her” and of course the date, is long gone and uses the gift card.
Butch
March 1, 2020 - 5:23 am

Are there any legit hook up sites?

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  March 1, 2020 - 12:41 pm
  
  I do not evaluate or provide recommendations on any sort of dating sites. Sorry.
PETER J. SHULICK
February 26, 2020 - 3:26 pm

Scam fraud or legit?

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  February 29, 2020 - 10:49 am
  
  Looks like a dating site, the question is how did you get there, or how did you get signed up. I do not review dating sites, but the one thing you can look for in the terms, is do they use fake profiles to ‘stimulate’ conversation.
Tom
February 23, 2020 - 1:03 pm

Thanks for the elaborate information and advice. I’m from the Netherlands and I had an experience like this as well, for me it was a girl I saw on Tinder, who said she was only in town for a few weeks and was looking for ‘some fun’, in combination with her instagram username. Sometimes these kinds of girls are real, so I decided to take that chance and message her on instagram. On her instagram profile it said that she was a camgirl, and her posts were either just regular cute pictures of her, or suggestive pictures, with captions like ‘DM me for a one night stand’ and such. Immediately I knew this was probably going to be a scam. She replied quite quickly to my message, and we talked for a bit. Up to then she seemed like she could still be a real person. She then asked me what I do for a living, so I told her, and I asked her if it’s true she’s a camgirl, and how long she had being doing it. Since that message, her replies became quite generic and felt like they could be auto-generated. She said she was single, and looking for a guy to do the deed with on cam on a regular basis. I would get paid $100 ‘per show’, and I would be completely anonymous while being on cam. Obviously I immediately doubted the authenticity of this offer, and any questions I asked were not really answered, with the responses seeming auto-generated. Because of the cam-company she worked for, I would have to be registered as her official ‘cam partner’, which she said would cost me $1.95, and sent me a link to her website. On her website, I needed to create an account, which button redirected me to a standard scam page, and I needed to verify my age by filling in creditcard details. I don’t own a creditcard (because I’d never need it as a 19yo student), but if I did, I obviously wouldn’t have filled in my details. I told her I can’t create an account as I don’t own a creditcard, and she hasn’t replied since.
Her insta is itscindywalton and her website is lilycampage.weebly dot com, with the ‘create an account’ button redirecting you to a different website.
Again, thanks for this elaborate article!

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Eslam
February 19, 2020 - 11:43 pm

Thank you sir for your advice , i just wanna ask i used my credit card but with an Australian post code and i am from another country and i entered my card info but i saw this message
” The card used to verify has been declined . Please confirm info or use a new card to verify ”
Am i safe with my money or i have to cancel my card and extract a new one ?

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  February 20, 2020 - 1:04 am
  
  Multiple readers have reported to me that they were declined, and signed up to another site, ended up with multiple charges. The error message might be real. Might not. No way for me to tell. Take the safe route.
Bill
February 17, 2020 - 8:52 pm

A young women contacted me on the Sugardaddyforme website. She gave me her email, I emailed her and we began an email exchange including a few pics. She claimed to be just 100 miles from me–a quick shot down the highway. We agreed on what we were looking for, and that we should meet. Then came the request for the safety verification ID along with the link. I asked about the cost (I was suspicious), she replied $39.99. My Hot Hookups (dot) com was the website which states “100% FREE VERIFICATION” “OVER 18? WE CHECK!” Also on there is “GET FREE ACCESS”. Filling in the name/password/email blanks will take you to the CC info page. That is where I stopped. Going back to the email exchange I had going with her, I stated I don’t give my card number to any verification site, they’re a scam. Here is her response: “The link i gave you love is safe and secure, i didnt ask you to sign up and you need the card for verification cause getting a verification ID is not free and thats what the card is for cause you need 39.99.”

I will give her credit for one thing; at least she was honest about the cost, but I won’t do it.
Whether this ends the email exchange remains unknown at the time of this posting.

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- Ronin Eternales
  February 17, 2020 - 9:58 pm
  
  Thanks for posting, good instincts, it is a scam. The myhothookups site is owned by Tod Holding Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus – A company associated with many scam sites. The site will only let you sign up with an invite. Since I do not have an an invite, I cant tell where it really lands,, if you could send me her invite to you I can dig further, probably make a quick film or article, which will help others. ronin.eternales at geeMail
  
  I dont know anything about the sugar site, but I would report the person to the site admins, it’s totally bogus for them to do that, and any legit site will appreciate it.
  
  Thanks
dominic
February 14, 2020 - 8:32 pm

i created an account on https://www. web-hookup .com/ but i think it is a scam. how do i stop the monthly charges before they begin? should i call my bank?

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- Ronin Eternales
  February 15, 2020 - 12:39 pm
  
  I took a quick look, going thru the link you provided, I have not seen anything that is an outright scam. I looked at the premium sign up and notice a few things
  
  1. The site uses “love stars”, these are essentially fake profiles
  2. There are charges for adult video services at a high monthly cost – in plain site
  3. the site that bills you changes with each click, so you will need to look at what your email says, in order to know what site to visit.
  
  Because all of this is in plain site, I won’t call it a scam. Beyond that all I can say us use your judgement and review the advice in the post “what to do now”
  good luck
Jimbob
February 8, 2020 - 1:49 am

I filled in the forms but used a fake email, card info but I put in my actual name and a postcode close to mine? Is there going to be any huge problems for me?

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- Ronin Eternales
  February 8, 2020 - 10:13 am
  
  I never answer such questions because It is not possible for me to know where you have been, what you did; there is always more to the story. I suggest following the advice in my posts.
Fleoensm
February 1, 2020 - 5:23 pm

Sure. My pleasure.
The “free game” website is http://free- adult-games.com/members/ and the billing website is https://securejoinsite.com/. The game attracts me is an advertisement from pornhub .com (thus I thought it must be safe…) and then it directs me to the free-adult-games.com. I found many other games from pornhub .com also belongs to free- adult-games.com so I doubt that pornhub is hacked by these scammers who advertise.
Again, thanks for your kindness. You do really help me a lot.

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Fleoensm
February 1, 2020 - 3:35 pm

Thanks for your suggestions again.
Actually, it is a game scam that requires me to prove my age, so I just try in one site. Besides, I didn’t give them my real name. What they have is my cc information and the zip code. I’m going to cancel my cc and get a new one as you suggested. I’ve read a comment below that the scammers might get my new cc number by asking the Mastercard. Do you have any other suggestions for such situation? I know it might be hard for you to answer this…But anyway, thanks for your suggestions!

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- Ronin Eternales
  February 1, 2020 - 4:47 pm
  
  No, noting else to add
  
  Thanks for pointing out the games. I have become aware of the fact that they front end the dating sites with games, and free cell phones, and no doubt other “free” offers. I am including that information in my other site, that eventually will hold all of these billing sites. for example https://stopthatcharge.com/rhsfty-com/
  
  If you have an example of the site, it is helpful for me as I find new variations of the scams. You can post it here, (I will take it down after posting) or send me an email via the contact feature, or ronin.eternales at protonmail.com
Fleoensm
January 30, 2020 - 3:51 pm

First of all, thanks for your sincere suggestions!
Just as you mentioned, I entered my credit card information on such websites (In my case, it is the securejoinsite.com). When I was trying to submit my information, my credit card was declined and then I felt sth strange and I didn’t complete the whole process and just left the page. I don’t know whether I’m in a high risk of identity theft or not since I didn’t finish registration process finally. Would you please give me some suggestions? Thank you!

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- Ronin Eternales
  February 1, 2020 - 2:23 pm
  
  Your card was probably declined because it was deemed a suspicious transaction by your credit card company. Sometimes these declines happen on purpose, and your “date” says try another site, and you end up in another scam. I have seen people with multiple charges from this type of situation.
  
  In either case, This decline happens after the scam website has your information.
  
  I can’t comment on your specific situation, because I don’t know where you have been, what you did etc. All of my recommendations are in the article you found.
  
  good luck
DONALD STEVENS
January 11, 2020 - 1:34 am

So if all this scam and deception is known why doesn’t the law prosecute all these thieving scammers? Because we had no real law. It’s like anything else they do. The law does not protect anyone. It just cleans up the mess after. This country blows anymore. These new generations in this so called God fearing don’t have any faith or regard for anyone. It’s all about lets get mine. Steal,scam and rob the next guy. What a selfish immoral generation. Best part of people today ran down their mama’s leg.

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- Ronin Eternales
  January 12, 2020 - 11:23 am
  
  There are a number of reasons,
  
  Most of the facade sites emanate from places like Bangladesh or the Philippines. Chasing them down would be difficult. Getting the FBI involved, for what is essentially petty theft, wouldn’t seem the best use of resources.
  
  The web hosting company gets a complaint, they look in to it, shut it down, and the scammer opens a new site. It is a game of whack-a-mole.
  
  These sites have multiple man-in-the-middle type operations, creating plausible deniability. If you look at the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F97BO0J0nDs around minute 14 there is an animated diagram of how they link the sites together. The owner of the crappy dating site, has no direct connection to the scam site in Bangladesh.
  
  If you go to home page of a site in the iframe, you typically find a contact page that states they are “Marketing Aggregator Site that has multiple affiliates using various methods to obtain sales. We are Proactive in taking action against inappropriate behavior.” So that inoculates them. I take it as an admission that they know what is going on. If you make a complaint to them, they are likely to boot the “affiliate”. The affiliate will shut down, and start a new one, and its whack-a-mole all over again.
  
  Sux, I know, so the only way I know to stop it is spread the word.
P goldsmith
January 2, 2020 - 5:26 am

This site got me. 73 $ twice now taken from my account ! I replaced card. Now. ! I still don’t no wat site I have even joined but the money was gone the second I gave details to them.
Bit stupid of me.! I recommend checking site reviews so many scammers out there.

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Timothy
December 29, 2019 - 2:50 am

I have had numerous contacts from So called women if you would like to know about them I will write all of there information down and if you get back with me I will have it on hand. Thank you.

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- Ronin Eternales
  December 31, 2019 - 10:59 am
  
  If you have website names and URL that you were sent that is helpful. Phone numbers, names, and pictures are VERY transient and not useful.
  
  Thanks for your effort.
Eric Clamp
December 27, 2019 - 2:23 pm

How does one get ID theft protection

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- Ronin Eternales
  December 27, 2019 - 10:19 pm
  
  https://www.identityguard.com/
Pete
December 24, 2019 - 3:40 pm

Excellent article and I sincerely commend you for your efforts. It proves there are honest giving people out there like you and myself, but we are outnumbered.
I was looking at a dating site and before I knew it they directed me to a free verification site. I am a public figure and I repeatedly texted that I would take a selfie and hold up a sign with a unique message like “helllo Susan nice to meet you today Dec 19th.
I also directed them to websites which show my bio and life history. Easy proof I am who I say I am. Not good enough, they kept insisting I get verified and turn over my cc info.
Then I called them out on it, knowing it had to be a scam.
Never heard from her again.
Excellent work on your part.
They followed your script to a “T”. In this case, some responses were bots and others seemed like someone was at the other end.

It’s sad we have a world full of dishonest liars and cheats who simply do not want to earn on honest living. May they all burn in Hell!!!!

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- Ronin Eternales
  December 24, 2019 - 5:20 pm
  
  Thank you for sharing your experience. My recommendation is that when you discover a scam, to cease all contact. Relatively speaking, it is rare, but there are Philippine gangs who are behind some of the scams; they are known to be ruthless. No point in any conversation with them.
Steve Williams
December 16, 2019 - 7:13 am

I was married the site texted me I texted A bot you r saying for 2 gory days. I was charged and even went to meet a bot? But cost me 200.00 which my wife found ASAP. I suggest do not cheat or meet a human

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Keviv
December 1, 2019 - 1:11 pm

Thanks so much for publishing this article, I was really stressed about what happened but knowing I’m not alone helps.

I was scammed by exactly what you posted.

I cancelled my debit card and got issued a new one. Do you think this is enough? If the 16 Digit Card Number and CVV is now different surely no more payments can go through?

I think I put my real name and postcode when i filled out the card part, is there any way these people can find me if the payments are no longer coming through?

I asked my bank to send a cancellation request on my behalf, do you think it will be honoured?

https: //localsafedatings .com/69247/ this is the one i got scammed on, and i’m unable to contact the site based on what got put on my statements, which is ‘renewfeectr .com 855329783…’

Just really don’t want anymore money taken out of my account and so far the bank said since the site has my information I subscribed to something so I can’t have the money refunded, and then sent a cancellation request on my behalf.

Bank also said changing the card isn’t a guarantee that the payments will stop, as the merchant can contact Mastercard to get updated card number.

Thanks again for all your help.

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- Ronin Eternales
  December 5, 2019 - 10:47 pm
  
  Hi, thanks for the comments and sharing , all of my recommendations can be found in the What to do now section of this article. I cant speak to what will / won’t happen, there is no way for me to know what all happened – there is always more to the story.
  
  The bank is correct in that some merchants who have a “card updater” service can get a new card number. Your bank should have offered you to opt out of the service in this situation. You can request to be opted out yourself. I dont think it will be a problem, but if they will not do that for you, its time for a new bank,
  
  Lastly, I dont know why you say you cant go to the site and cancel, it looks like it is up and running to me.
  
  good luck to you
- Ronin Eternales
  February 15, 2020 - 1:03 pm
  
  sorry for the late response, i did not see your question Its not possible for me to know the answers to the questions you have asked. Typically you should go to the site that bills you to cancel.
  
  As to your last statement, that the banks says changing the card might not stop the charges. This is true, due to what is called the “card updater service”. This is a service that a merchant can pay for, that allows them to shift subscription type of payments when the customers card changes. This is helpful to a consumer if they have a subscription to a Netflix or something. It hurts the consumer in these situations.
  
  Ask your bank to opt out of the card updater. In the US, there is no regulation that requires the bank to do so, however most major banks do allow it. If your bank will not allow you to opt out of card updater, then you should get a new bank / card provider.
Candice
November 30, 2019 - 8:22 pm

Thank you for posting this! It is much appreciated and reading through, even the technical parts, it remind me that nothing on the internet can be trusted. We all get caught in one way or another, but with people like you reminding and posting current information on safety and what to look out for is really caring and thoughtful. Thank you.

I usually also do research before entering any site but scammers seem to be one step ahead of us and it’s important for us to start and continue being a step ahead of them by not falling into the deception trap.
I’d like to believe they will be scammed in a different way and then how it feels to be on the other side of things.

I was lucky enough not to fall into a verification process but have received numerous spam emails. Sorry to those who were not so lucky.

Stay educated and take note to all online users!

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Chuck Edward
November 15, 2019 - 2:25 am

If I have never put my credit card information into an age verification site, am I safe from these hidden charges?

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- Ronin Eternales
  November 15, 2019 - 10:55 pm
  
  So I never answer questions like this. Sorry, but it is not possible for me to know where you been, what you did, etc.
Katrina Willmott
October 13, 2019 - 10:59 am

I didn’t sign up for anything and they have charged me. How do I get the money back?

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- Ronin Eternales
  October 13, 2019 - 11:32 am
  
  perform an internet search on the website that appears on your statement, such as what is xyz.com if i have anything you will find it that way
Baker
October 13, 2019 - 1:15 am

Are there any legitimate verification sites or are they all just rubbish?

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- Ronin Eternales
  October 13, 2019 - 11:28 am
  
  No
  
  If you think about it, short of a doing background check, exactly what could be accomplished?
  
  And the background check model is exactly opposite of the get verified, the requester pays
  
  There are some people working on date verification concept, which they think will be legitimate, but after looking at it carefully it was fundamentally flawed, so I will not mention it
Kenji
September 21, 2019 - 1:29 am

Thanks for the reply, because I thought obviously you wouldn’t put your card details in it too see what will come up next, so all you can get to is the cc page, since I went thru it you might want to know what’s actually behind it. Since I stupidly listened to them I clicked thru it a lot of times so they might signed me up to a list of those rubbish sites. And after I realised I got scammed I deleted the email account, which I regret now coz I should have look in the spam folder to see what I got signed up to, but I only found your blog a month later, so it was too late for me to respond. All I know are those appeared on my card, and since I cancelled my cards quickly, i don’t know what else I got signed up to, now just hope these firms will not come after me
Hope these info can further help your blog and more people, really appreciate your work, if I found this earlier I would not get myself into this huge mess. Awaiting for your part 2 video

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Kenji
September 20, 2019 - 3:22 am

yea I watched your video several times it was truly helpful. The scammers who scammed me were from Philippine, and the charges on my cards are from Cyprus Malta and uk. I see now this is a global network. The company behind this have offices/data bases in all major countries, very scary
I got declined a lot of times, but when you get thru the sign up cc page (what you show us) it’s not actually over, the site will still directs you to otqher adult sites and keep telling you to sign up. The scammers will say it’s the last process u just hv to finish the last page, but in fact there’s no green finish button, if u press verify they just keep direct u to another sign up form.
Also the other thing I want to know is why they ask you for your zip code in the sign up? I stupidly entered mine I don’t know what they’ll do. The only good thing is I don’t have credit cards, otherwise it’s goin to be a hassle dealing with the credit agencies

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- Ronin Eternales
  September 20, 2019 - 9:52 pm
  
  Very interesting. I knew that there could be multiple signups, but it was explained to me that the “girl” said she didn’t get it, and try again. This is different, possibly new. I appreciate you posting all the info.
  
  The zip code will tell them what denomination to use for charging $ € £ etc. Also a zip code is required for certain credit card transactions.
  
  Remember they likely have a good deal of personal info, so I recommend getting ID theft protection. I recommend Identity Guard
Kenji
September 17, 2019 - 12:59 pm

Yeah I suppose so, they threaten you to pay by gift cards and sometimes very knowledgeable telling you specifically which card to buy, then in fact use those cards and your name to sign up to more of these crappy sites. Thru this I’m guessing all these sort of sites want is just 40 or perhaps 50 bucks from victims and then pay a certain amount to scammers for commission
Also why are they all centred in Europe?

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- Ronin Eternales
  September 19, 2019 - 8:52 pm
  
  They like gift cards because they can be shared online – and – they are sort of guaranteed money – the money is in the card, not a bank account on the other end of complex network. I really dont know why Europe. Most of the scammers that I have been able to locate (in this scam), come from Bangladesh, Philippines, and other far east countries. the other thing is that there are multiple middleman operations, meaning you can’t connect the owner of the dating or adult website, with the scammer that tricked you in to signing up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F97BO0J0nDs
Joaquin Duran
September 14, 2019 - 10:07 am

Yeah i got suckered and thought ivwas buying a lifetime id for $30 through paypal when i tried contacting the site all returned with no domain messages except this one . he asked if i was paying for delivery i said on top of the 30 i just spent he says yeah it’s going to be $150 . i asked for my money and they refuse to so now I’m waiting on paypal to reimburse me

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- Ronin Eternales
  September 16, 2019 - 9:34 pm
  
  Big time scam, The main get verified button lands you ihookup.com. It states you will get updates from sweethaart and transfers you to theprocam.com – a dating site that is run by a a person in Cyprus, and is billed as DRAGONFLYCARE.COM*855-983-0063. The terms of use show that it signs you up for 4 more sites:
  
  Your Premium Membership: ihookup .com one day two dollars trial, membership renews the next calendar day at thirty-nine dollars one cent per month, after the trial period ends, unless cancelled. Special bonus site http://www.in-stant .net, for only nineteen dollars ninety-three cents, billed once per calendar month. http://www.doitpartner .com, four day trial that rebills at forty-six dollars, after the trial period ends unless cancelled. Special bonus site http://www.yousutra .com, for only nine dollars ninety-nine cents, billed once per calendar month. Special bonus site http://www.cutecams .com, for only four dollars ninety-nine cents, billed once per calendar month.
  
  That is almost $120 per month!!!!
  
  If you click the backup link, you are signed up for shnvme .com, a crappy dating site run out of Cyprus.
Kenji
September 13, 2019 - 11:28 pm

Do these websites or companies have the ability to sue someone? Has anyone actually got sued by them?
Also I want to point out now scammers not just pretending to be girls that lure you in signing up they also pretend to be the admins of the popular sites and say you violated their terms if you do not sign up they will take legal action

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- Ronin Eternales
  September 16, 2019 - 9:21 pm
  
  I truly doubt it. its a common tactic, many readers have told me this happened to them. My guess is that the scam operator not making their quota 😉
Johnathan Henry
September 8, 2019 - 7:32 pm

Thank you for this very insightful and helpful article. I’ve gotten hooked into this mess when I wasn’t thinking straight and this was really eye-opening. I’ve already contacted my bank, Chase, and had my debit card voided for fraud. I’m also going to get refunded the money I previously paid (Chase is an amazing bank).
I love the internet, but man, some of the scummy stuff that people will do on here will never cease to boggle my mind. Thanks again.

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Dan
September 6, 2019 - 1:22 am

Wow when did you create this website for the public? How many fallen victims have contacted you since then? What was the worst case you’ve came across with? Sorry for all the questions but I fell for this pretty deep too I would like to know how many people are actually in the same situation
Seems like in US debit card users do not get a lot of protections, I’m in Aus and when I told my bank they just refunded all of them without even asking what I did, I guess it’s the law here but I have to do this within 60 days. I’m surprised that you say debit cards are more dangerous than credit cards, I always thought it is the other way around.

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- Ronin Eternales
  September 16, 2019 - 9:52 pm
  
  yea so most of the questions you are asking would be trade secret or confidential. Suffice it to say, if you have fallen for the scam, you have lots of company.
Lafe Burts
September 5, 2019 - 5:01 am

Supposed to got free passes but ithey want a credit card number i dont do credit cards.

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Dan
September 5, 2019 - 1:43 am

How did your readers manage to found out this? Do they actually use these shell dating/adult sites? I was researching about the white label companies and each of them owns a shear amount of these sites, you can’t even find them on google, that’s why they’re considered low quality and shady. They also say they will cross register their customers to different sites to boost their traffic and income. I really doubt that someone will actually use these sites for dating or adult fun and if these practices are actually legal, do you know approximately how many real people are using these dating sites (let’s pick the most “popular one” shineloveonme)?

Besides contacting them about the fraudulent charges, I think you would just recommend us to sever ties and cease interaction with them right?

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- Ronin Eternales
  September 5, 2019 - 9:10 pm
  
  Readers contact me all the time, 10x what you see in comments. 99.9% have fallen for the scam, signed up for a free cell phone, etc.
  
  I cant comment on how many real users are on the site.
  
  Generally I would rather a person not work with these companies, however, if you intend to dispute a charge or want a refund, in the US, the Fair Credit Billing Act requires the consumer to make a good faith effort to work out the problem with the merchant. This means you must contact them
Dan
August 27, 2019 - 1:08 pm

Hi ronin I’m recently reading your articles about the shell companies. Each of these companies owns a large number of adult sites right? If I got signed up to their services during the date verification (even just one), the account/profile will be established and visible on every sites they own..? Is that what you’re saying I’m really paranoid about this

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- Ronin Eternales
  September 3, 2019 - 8:56 pm
  
  I do not know that about the adult sites. I know that the dating sites share the profiles across the different branded sites, readers have told me this, and I have seen terms of use on the dating sites that state this as well.
vikram
August 27, 2019 - 10:42 am

I have been searching for a verify plenty of fish account then finally, when I read this Article I get to know the correct information about it and I found this information is relevant. You have an ample amount of knowledge and that describes it very clearly and I thank you for giving me this type of knowledge and it helps me a lot.

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Jim
August 25, 2019 - 1:35 am

Yes it is a scam. I joined up but with in minutes I notice I was charge $40.00 to my card. I found the website where I talked to someone online. I asked the person what I was being charge for and they said that they could give me that info once I provided them a subpoena and a write letter from me asking about the charges. Eventually they reverse the charges.

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Ryan Wright
August 10, 2019 - 11:48 am

I was filling out the form but I didn’t finish because things didn’t seem right. Should my information be safe?

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- Ronin Eternales
  August 11, 2019 - 12:22 pm
  
  there is no way for me to tell where you been, what you did. sorry.
Richard
August 8, 2019 - 3:39 pm

I was given this link: https://www.spicyfling .com/fling/ slimgreen/index2.php?wid=8794&subaffiliate=10027
Looks like a scam? She assures me that it is legit.

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- Ronin Eternales
  August 11, 2019 - 12:25 pm
  
  same ole scam
Tim
August 5, 2019 - 8:09 am

Hi Ronin thx for reply. Yeah I figured Facebook is actually not a safe place, can only blame myself for too young too inexperienced and too naive. Sexting or sex cam or whatever is indeed an absolute no I’m not stupid enough to take my clothes off online. Just afraid they will use those info to find me say I owe them money on those websites or violate their terms etc etc.
Only good thing is I do not hv credit cards, bank cancelled the debit cards and refund all of the charges.

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Tim
August 2, 2019 - 12:07 am

Since they have a name and a picture will they find and track people on social media like Facebook and ig? This is the scariest part as they can find a lot more information from there…I’m too scared of this I deleted everything online

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- Ronin Eternales
  August 4, 2019 - 1:09 pm
  
  It is an extreme case, but that can happen. There are gangs who make a living off of blackmailing. They trick you in to sexting, then threaten you with posting it on facebook etc.
  
  1. Signing on to any service using Facebook is an absolute no.
  2. Sexting is an absolute no
Jack
August 1, 2019 - 11:35 am

So the websites that appeared on the victims statements are the billing sites and each of them links to an associated shell site based in Europe, and there are tons of these shell companies which are controlled by an unknown large white label company, scammers send links telling or threatening people to verify in order to sign them up to those shell sites.
I cancelled my cards tell them to delete the account and service and contacted id support changed everything online (pretty late tho stupid me!) do u think I’ll be fine

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- Ronin Eternales
  August 1, 2019 - 9:02 pm
  
  I also recommend getting an identity theft protection service.
Will
July 28, 2019 - 7:25 pm

Didn’t send card info they keep emailing me to verify i won’t felt like something’s not right

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- Ronin Eternales
  July 29, 2019 - 8:16 pm
  
  yea its a scam
John
July 22, 2019 - 2:34 pm

So the strange websites that appear on the victims card statements are the billing sites, and each billing site is associated with a shell company dating/porn website, then there are lots and lots of these shell company websites that belongs to a big white label company, there might be more then one of these white labels right? And we do not know who and where they are coz they purposefully hide themselves. When people got scammed and signed up to these shell websites the white label in behind gains the money

Got scammed too, but after a click the verification scam page directed me to sign up SweetDiscreet.com, which seems to me is a little more legit site than those crappy ones

Reply
Stefan
July 11, 2019 - 2:11 pm

Hi, I was hit from – goinfiniteheart.com
A guy told me that he had this experience of being beaten up by 4 men so he needs to use these – protective dating sites -.-”
And this site even has a video of some videos showing Grindr being unsafe, which is one of the things which made me believe it’s not fake..
So, I put up my info … 3 days ago, and got charged immediately – 47.99e
And saw a mail in my spam – thanking me for joining – showuptolove.com o.0″
So, I did as you told – I just called my bank.
Have internet charges blocked until I pull out rest of the cash from the card and then am going to cancel and change it.
As I found cancel subscription button, and they needed to have some numbers from my card to do so, as now it’s blocked, I did it too and cancelled it.
So, my question is. Do you think it is going to be enough to do this, mark things as spam in my inbox and also do the ic3 thing?
I wouldn’t like to start paying for identity guard too.. as I don’t usually do stupid things like these

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  July 11, 2019 - 8:26 pm
  
  Do you know who has your credit card and personal information?
  
  yea neither do I
Mihajlo
July 6, 2019 - 2:46 am

I get up in this same situation, on my master card I get expense from Paymentsfee.com. On that web site there is a form which you fill and I saw three subscriptions with my card. I canceled all three of them. Also I wrote to them that I am scam victim which is conducted with their service, will see if they will return the money. Thanks for this article it really helped me a lot.

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Luke
June 28, 2019 - 8:29 am

I was forced to sign up in one of these websites by a person I was talking online as they told me to sign up to an online dating account or else my nudes would be leaked. Will attempting to make an account a notification of my card being declined kept happening and I was not able to make an account. The extortionist got tired and left and I called my banking company as soon as possible to tell them of my situation. They cancelled my card and noticed 3 different charges of around $40, I was forced to sign up to three different accounts as I couldn’t make an account in any. Now, I’m just worried whether those sites can bill me in the future even though I changed my card number. On the site I had a debit card, so I am uncertain whether they will be able to use my information to take credit. The scam I was forced to fall for was the age verification one.

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  July 3, 2019 - 11:17 pm
  
  you have cancelled your card, good
  
  Make no further contact with them.
  Report threats to ic3.gov
  Never use a debit card online. Ever. https://theonlinedatingscams.com/letter-from-a-reader-debit-card/
  Check with your bank, if the “card updater” service is on your card, and if it is opt out.
  Get an Identity protection service such as Identity Guard or Lifelock
Marley Gibbs
June 25, 2019 - 11:41 pm

Thanks for the information

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Billy
June 24, 2019 - 7:10 am

I got fooled into signing up for several pornographic sites, and unauthorized charges are showing up on my debit card from weird names like EHAVAH. COM 8444127687, Nor-dtfee. com INTERNET, and WWW. CAREELF. COM. Some of the pornographic sites do not seem to have an option for canceling/deleting my profile. Others have an option to cancel my subscription and/or delete my profile, but only if I contact the site administrators. Should I contact them or not? If so, should I contact them before or after I deactivate my debit card?

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Vicky
June 24, 2019 - 1:30 am

Thanks for the comment, I’ve done what I could do to protect myself. I’ve also sent you an email including some billing sites that appeared on my statements which might not be in your search system

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Vicky
June 15, 2019 - 7:43 am

You sir is a legend your research helps a lot of people, including myself who has been scammed by several sites like these, keep updating so your work can help more people in the future. One question I would like to ask is have you ever got any readers/victims saying that they only cancelled their cards, but got sent solicitor emails or letters threatening court or debt collection since they did not cancel the service?

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  June 20, 2019 - 9:16 pm
  
  I have not. I have seen however that the companies are more lenient in giving refunds, and as such i am recommending now that people contact the company and ask for a refund first, then work with their bank if need, and as always cancel the credit card, and get identity theft service
  
  Readers have informed me that the scammers get hostile and threatening to them. Threats such as if you don’t register you are going to owe big bucks, or if you pay, will call the authorities, and other crap like that. It’s total BS. And these people are several steps removed from the billing company.
John
June 8, 2019 - 10:18 pm

The only thing that appears on my card is “PMTOPTS.COM 8442589235” though.

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John
June 8, 2019 - 4:31 pm

Hey, my card was also hit. I’m wondering if cancelling the card at my bank will be enough? I don’t know how to cancel the membership since it was supposed to be free. Due to the fact that they own my personal data, I’m worried they may send the future bills to my address, is that possible?

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  June 8, 2019 - 9:05 pm
  
  You cancel by going to the website that appears on your card. I advise getting ID theft protection.
David
May 30, 2019 - 9:32 pm

Thank you for your work – it has helped me understand what has happened to me.

For my part I found someone via Pure, a hookup iPhone app that I am now going to unsubscribe from. A woman contacted me and after a bit of chat directed me to contact her via Instagram. Her IG and her Pure profile pic checked out. Her IG account looked ‘normal’, i.e., not a cam model etc. I was used to cam models hitting me up via IG to meet of I only sign up to watch and then upvote them. This was new. She claimed she staying near me visiting relatives (her IG account said she was half-Aussie) and was bored and wanted sex. And then she pulled the ID verification thing: she only hooked up with guys who got an ID from Online Dating Protection https://www.onlinedatingprotector.com/ So I refused … at first.

Now I knew this was a scam but I was thrown by the fact that she was not a bot and her IG account checked out. She even had a LinkedIn profile that matched her employment ‘backstory’. And then when I refused and kept refusing her offer of sex if only I would sign up to Online Dating Protector because I said it was a scam she claimed it wasn’t and then even offered for me to use her credit card details. Now I know I shouldn’t have used them … but I did. It didn’t work. She claimed it was blocked. But I think now I know why.

That was the final straw that prompted me to go through with trying it. I decided to try it with prepaid credit cards. After all she said it would only cost $60 and then of course as it was free the ‘floating charges’ would be refunded with the ID. I had also just paid off all my credit cards and was about to cancel them so I figured it was low risk from that perspective.

She was good now thatI reflect on what happened next. She email me the link and instructions (from an email address which being a Gmail account is probably fake). The link took me to the kind of sites your website mentions. Of course, the verification process had numerous steps – more than just what was on my prepaid card, which worked by the way. At each step and each time she asked for screenshots. When I had signed up for some dating site, she asked me to wait for an email from Online Dating Protection. And of course an email I did get – from a Gmail account datingprotectorsystem@gmail.com. Who would then send me another link etc. Interestingly one of the instructions was to clear my browser history, s I used Safari for that process, as I didn’t trust it with my Chrome. I did this a few times, and of course one of my credit cards now has 3-4 mysterious $60 charges pending, which I have now blocked.

Last night was the last straw. Of course, the woman in question was champing at the bit and being very flirty with me over IG messenger. Sending me some photos on request, telling me all the things she would want me to do to her, asking me to describe the same. She was super helpful the whole way as I say. At one stage, she even IG video called me (without the video on) to see if I would show her the pre-paid credit card. But the final payment I wasn’t willing to do on my legit cards so and so in an email exchange with the ‘Online Dating Protectors’ they actually told me to buy a Coles Mastercard prepaid, even describing the colour, which was very knowledgable of them. So I did that and with my IG girl looking virtually over my shoulder with screenshots I was sending her, discovered they took the money but the final link took me to a ‘something went wrong!’ page. So I email the ODP people who promptly replied that I needed to try again with a different link on a different computer. And then when that didn’t work they started to tell me it was my fault and that I needed to get another Coles Mastercard and try again and then all the floating charges would be refunded.

Look, I want free uninhibited sex with young women who look like models as much as the next middle aged single man but that was the straw that broke the camels back. So I wrote off the prepaid cards and blocked my cards. I’ll be cancelling them as of today. I’m going to send her site to my IG lady. And its clear to me that ‘she’ must also be my ODP emailer too, so I’ll make she I say her to her there with the same link. I will then block her. I have screenshots of everything we talked about on IG and of course all teh emails. I know now through your site that she must be one of those ‘entrepreneurs’ you talked about, who use the white label shell to generate at least a side income from men like me but in worse places in their lives. I am willing to send me details to you if you wish as you have done so much work already and this seems to be a new development not mentioned on her site. Also this is an Australian example and could help my fellow country men, literally. Keep up the good work!

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  June 8, 2019 - 9:12 pm
  
  Thanks for the letter. Using someone else’s credit card without authorization is a felony. yea she gave it to you, but was it hers? will she back you up in cour
carl james
May 21, 2019 - 11:20 am

got scammed 4 age verifiction 1st then piv by some girl said she was 15 mins away so I said meet in pub 4 safety she insisted I get piv nocharge ha thnk there all on commission iwas directd 2 spicy fling wots that all about.

Reply
Dennis Haun
May 17, 2019 - 5:44 pm

My card was hit but it wasn’t a dating site it was age verification for an adult gaming site but everything is the same as described in the article. I just wanted to put out there that these scams are not always the dating sites

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  May 18, 2019 - 12:05 pm
  
  Thank you for the comment. I am including that in updates to my site and my new site https://stopthatcharge.com
  
  I have been able to find one of these gaming sites that do this, but if you have one you can post it here or use the contact feature of the website
Brandon Young
May 15, 2019 - 5:24 am

I was recently tricked by a girl into signing up for one of these hookup ids and got fraudulent charges on my card. The thing is, we were texting before this happened and she sent me pictures of herself, including her face! She also gave me her name, although it is probably fake. Is there any way to use these pictures to report her to the police? Is it that serious of a crime? Or do you think the pictures are fake too?

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  May 15, 2019 - 10:24 pm
  
  Most likely the pics are stolen. Do a reverse search with tineye. What police do you think you would call? Dhaka? Philippines?
Daniel Miller
May 14, 2019 - 2:33 pm

Hello,
first and foremost I want to as others have thank you for putting in the time to put all this together, i hope it will help many people with their doubts and hopefully save people’s time and energy also cash lol from wasting or being stolen.
Would the idea of a running list of sites be a good way of adding to this, I understand the maintaince aspect to it in keeping it updated. I think if we had enough bodies working in a team like fashion we could do some real good here, not that come and say the work you did wasn’t good, damn fine work if i do say so myself.
lemme know people’s thoughts.

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  May 14, 2019 - 9:57 pm
  
  Thanks for posting
  
  I have many posts that identify the scam sites, and get regular traffic on them. Many of the sites come from readers.
  
  A big issue is that they come and go, it is a real life game of whack-a-mole. after a few months freegetverified.com becomes getverfiedfree.com.
  
  But certainly by all means, anybody can send a note, or post a comment and I will do my best with it
Sami
May 10, 2019 - 9:35 am

how can i get id security verification?

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  May 12, 2019 - 6:35 pm
  
  You do not. There is no such thing. They are scams.
Lonnie Grabenhorst
September 18, 2018 - 9:30 pm

Good info

Reply
Jason
September 13, 2018 - 6:05 pm

Thanks for this article. I could tell something was wrong, but couldn’t quite put my finger on how it worked. So I too have been duped, however, I canceled the card immediately, and have followed the rest of your advice here. It is fascinating however, I did end up getting into a very long and in depth conversation over google hangouts, which ultimately led to a video “chat” however, there wasn’t much chatting, and the sound on their side wasn’t on (I couldn’t hear them). Is there a way to simulate a video call by using some old cam footage or something? I get that they can find pics all over the internet, but the video really threw me. I recognized many of these “women” to be scammers or bots very quickly, but this one I even called out on their scam and told them the name of the persons pics they were using…but the video was convincing…even without the sound on which I was gold was because “she accidentally had it muted”. Anyway, I guess it can be done, but if you could confirm it, I would be grateful. I also found It interesting that they sent me about a dozen pics, half of which were easily tracked by tineye.com, but the others which seemed much more candid, and personal, weren’t found. I ended up doing one “age verification” and then we chatted for a few hours, including the video, then she asked again if I could do another thing to “help her get votes and improve her profile”. I told her I wouldn’t do it l, and that I was canceling the other one too, and closing the card. But…she stuck to her story. Have you ever heard of times that they used real women to actually play the role and get some sort of commission? Thank you again for this great info

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  October 6, 2018 - 2:43 pm
  
  The whole thing runs on a commission. In the date verification sites where you are signed up for a crappy dating site, the money flows back from a white label dating service, to the person who owns the crappy dating site, to the click generator, to the scammer. In the cam sites there are sometimes real girls who are getting paid. It is a cascading bonus arrangement that encourages the girls to get new members. Read my glasscams.com post. And yes, they can and do have the ability to simulate video that respond to your requests, so you could be talking to some guy in a basement somewhere.
Robert George
September 5, 2018 - 4:12 am

I’m getting harassing emails saying I have violated the terms of these sites buy not getting a verfication ID. I told them I dont want it but they still say I have too get it. I’m no longer on the sites. I cancelled my cards but that’s not good enough I have now spent a few 100 dollars in pre paid cards too make them stop but all I have done is signed up to more sites. They claim because I have violated the terms they will come after me for several hundreds of dollars. Which isn’t a big deal. But I dont what too pay only too have them get more personal info or just continue the harassment. Can they legally sue me for not wanting this ID and not filling it out or signing up.

Thanks for the help the article was very helpful

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  October 6, 2018 - 2:37 pm
  
  No, you are fine. That is a new one though, who / what site is telling you that you need to get verified?
Jesse Ramsden
May 28, 2018 - 9:38 am

My account got hacked on multiple sites missing a couple hundred dollars looking to get refund froM all sites ?

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  May 28, 2018 - 10:36 am
  
  Call your bank. Hacking an account is a felony.
jack
January 18, 2018 - 8:11 am

Dann site screwed up my card.

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  January 18, 2018 - 10:43 am
  
  It could end more than your card that has a problem. I recommend that you read and follow the instructions on this post: https://theonlinedatingscams.com/credit-card-fraud-dispute-process/
  
  Good Luck
Vetyss.com | Ronin Eternales
December 7, 2017 - 5:17 pm

[…] read the post “Unauthorized Credit Card Charges” to learn more about what might have happened to you, and what you should do next. It is […]

Reply
Is CraigsMeetFriend a Scam? | Ronin Eternales
December 3, 2017 - 8:31 pm

[…] you have given this site your credit card, you need to take action. See my post Unauthorized Credit Card Charges for information on what you need to […]

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Craigs Free Hookup – a Craigslist Date Verify Scam | Ronin Eternales
November 27, 2017 - 3:50 pm

[…] my Unauthorized Credit Card Charges post for a more complete […]

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Michael
November 20, 2017 - 5:52 am

First…and foremost…thanks for your time and efforts to put a vast amount of time into this. Secondly… I had found two of these culprits on a bank statement about a year ago. Everything was taken care of in short order. Some are not so diligent.

Reply
Secured Online Seekers Date Verification Scam | Ronin Eternales
November 11, 2017 - 7:04 pm

[…] my Unauthorized Credit Card Charges post for a more complete […]

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Craigs Friend Finder – Get Verified Scam | Ronin Eternales
November 8, 2017 - 4:58 pm

[…] Please read my post Unauthorized Credit Card Charges. […]

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Norberto Ciorciari
November 2, 2017 - 10:24 am

pOR FAVOR COMO HAGO PARA QUE NO ME SIGAN DESVONTANDO TODOS LOS MESES

Reply
- Ronin Eternales
  November 2, 2017 - 1:52 pm
  
  No sé qué es lo que estás preguntando.
  si su tarjeta de crédito se está cargando, cancele su tarjeta de crédito.
  
  I dont know what you are asking. If your credit card is being charged, cancel your credit card.
DateMeetSafe.com Date Verification Scam | Ronin Eternales
November 1, 2017 - 7:47 pm

[…] my Unauthorized Credit Card Charges post for a more complete […]

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Safemeets.net Date Verification Scam | Ronin Eternales
October 31, 2017 - 7:40 pm

[…] my Unauthorized Credit Card Charges post for a more complete […]

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Ryan
January 13, 2017 - 1:21 am

Yep it got me good, too good. I can say I thought I spot these things easily but that wasn’t the case lol. New to a dating site first time ever on one. Within the first hour I had 4 msgs from Different women I decided to accept the one from Washington, claiming to be visiting Canada for 2 weeks. Got sent Bit.LY links with SSL encryption… Anything can happen be careful especially Models claiming a Private Modeling Agency. never give any Credit Card info for verification. It’s as easy as picture ID. .

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A Credit Card Charge from hfsnge.com | Ronin Eternales
December 21, 2016 - 8:39 am

[…] This article is just a summary of what is going on. My companion article will show you in detail what happens from a consumer perspective, and why I do not recommend contacting them any further: Unauthorized Credit Card Charges […]

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An unknown, unauthorized credit card charge from stgved.com | Ronin Eternales
December 21, 2016 - 8:36 am

[…] This article is just a summary of what is going on. My companion artilce will show you in detail what happens from a consumer perspective, and why I do not recommend contacting them any further: Unauthorized Credit Card Charges […]

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An unknown credit card charge from ndyuha.com | Ronin Eternales
December 21, 2016 - 8:36 am

[…] how this scam works. You can read more, and see the consumer’s experience in this article: Unauthorized Credit Card Charges. That will cover why I think it is a scam, and recommend that you do not recommend contacting […]

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The Age and Date Verification Scam

A Quick Tour of the Date Verification Scam

The Age and Date Verification Scam

The Scam Post

What you see on the scam website

What you cannot see…

Online Dating – Date Verification Scam Video

A Click Generator

White Label and Branded Dating Sites

There’s Lots of them. Lots and lots of them.

What Happens Next

If you did sign up…

The Charge on the credit card statement

Who operates these sites?

Date Verification Scam Sites

Click Generators

Branded Dating Sites

My all-time favorite is the owner of Go Find Dates

The White Label Dating Company

The Panama Connection

The Branded Dating Sites Purposefully Hide Themselves

Designed for Deception

Other ways to deceive

Whack a Mole

Widespread

Obfuscation and Plausible Deniability

A High-Risk Privacy Policy

There is no spoon

If you have been caught in this Scam

What to do now

Tired of the Scams?

Do you want to know...

Double Your Dating

Here's How

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