• Beware, you might lose your money
• City Police arrest man who cheated by promising massage service through dating app

Mysore/Mysuru: Of late, the number of people using online dating apps and websites is on the rise and compared to the few years there is also a drastic increase in the number of dating apps and websites offering services.

These apps and websites serve as a medium which helps users find the right match.

As these websites are used by a lot of people, dating frauds are also on the rise where fraudsters target people who use these websites, to cheat them of their hard-earned money.

Sleuths of the Cyber, Economic and Narcotics (CEN) wing of the Mysuru city have arrested a man who swindled his victim of Rs. 3,000 through an online dating application. A press release from the office of the City Police Commissioner said that the dating app ‘Locanto’ was used for the fraud and the arrest was made within 24 hours.

However, the identity of the victim and the arrested has been kept confidential. Police said the accused would create fake profiles on ‘Locanto’, with bogus details and use photos of different women. The app was encrypted and therefore, the accused felt more secure using it.     

In his complaint, the victim said that he was promised massage service, for which he had paid Rs. 3,000 online. After the money was paid, the fraudster went incommunicado. Police said that the dating app claimed to provide massage services by college girls, video call services by girls in the nude and interaction with women.

Fraudsters in these cases only take digital payments. Through dating apps, they would pretend to be a woman and lure gullible men to transfer money. After the transaction, the accused would turn off the phone and block the SIM cards. The fraudsters usually collect 50 percent of money upfront for each service and investigations have revealed that more than 80 customers had cumulatively lost more than Rs. 8 lakh.