How to spot a fake dating profile

Most people you'll meet on a dating site are exactly who they say they are. A small number are not: they're scammers using someone else's photos and a made-up life story, and they're patient. The signs below come from police and consumer-protection agencies in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and they're remarkably consistent.

What is a fake dating profile?

A fake dating profile is one where the photos, name or life story don't belong to the person writing to you. Most are set up to start a romance scam: a relationship built online to get money. A few are just people being dishonest about their age or marital status. Either way, the checks below help.

Signs in the profile

The profile itself often gives the first clue, before a single message arrives.

• Photos that look too good. Professional-looking shots, a model's face, or someone who looks far younger than the age given. Scammers usually steal photos from other people's social media, as Police Scotland points out.
• Very few photos, or all from the same shoot.
• A job that keeps them far away. Australia's Scamwatch lists the military, the UN, doctors and oil-rig workers among the most common cover stories. Others claim to be engineers or contractors working overseas.
• A sympathetic back story. Widowed with a child, or recently divorced and lonely. Scamwatch notes that scammers invent these details to win sympathy.
• Vague or generic text that could describe anyone, or English that doesn't match where they say they're from.
• Details that don't add up. Their profile says one thing and their messages another. Police Scotland flags exactly this.

Signs in the messages

The clearest signs usually show up once you start talking, and they follow a pattern.

• Love, fast. Strong feelings or talk of a future together after a handful of messages. Canada's Anti-Fraud Centre lists someone you haven't met professing their love as a warning sign.
• A push to leave the site. They want to move to a messaging app, email or text straight away. The Anti-Fraud Centre and Police Scotland both flag this. Off the site, nobody can see or stop what happens.
• No video, no meeting. The camera is broken, the connection is bad, they're about to be deployed. Every time.
• Stories that change. Their daughter's name, their hometown or their job shifts from week to week.
• Copy-and-paste charm. Long, flowery messages that never quite answer your questions.
• Money, eventually. A medical bill, a customs fee, a plane ticket, a frozen bank account, or a chance to share in their investment success. The FTC is blunt: if an online love interest you've never met in person asks you for money, it's a scam.

One sign on its own may mean nothing. Several together should make you stop and check.

AI-made photos and video

Scammers no longer need to steal a photo: they can make one. The FBI warns that criminals use generative AI, software that creates realistic pictures, voices and video, to produce believable profile photos and even short videos meant to "prove" they're a real person.

The FBI suggests looking closely for small flaws, such as:

• distorted hands or feet
• teeth or eyes that look unnatural
• a blurred or oddly shaped face
• glasses or jewelry that don't look right
• shadows that fall the wrong way
• on video, a lag, a voice that doesn't match the mouth, or stiff, unnatural movement

None of these is proof on its own, and the fakes are getting better. That's why the money rule matters more than any photo check.

Three checks you can do yourself

Ten minutes of checking will catch most fake profiles. You don't need any special skills.

1. Search the internet with their photo

A reverse image search means searching with a picture instead of words, to see where else it appears online. The FTC suggests doing this with a match's profile photos.

1. Save or screenshot their profile photo.
2. Open an image search. Google's image search (Google Lens) and Microsoft Bing both let you search with a picture; on a phone, look for the camera icon in the search bar.
3. Upload the photo and look through the results.

If the same face appears under a different name, on a model's portfolio or in a news story about scams, you have your answer. If nothing turns up, that's reassuring but not proof, because AI-made photos won't appear anywhere else.

2. Ask for a video call

A real person who's interested in you will usually agree, perhaps after some nerves. Someone who always has an excuse is a warning sign. Our guide to setting up a video call explains how to do it safely.

If they keep putting it off, you can say so plainly. For example: "I've enjoyed our chats, but I'd like to see who I'm talking to before we go any further. Could we do ten minutes on video this week?" A genuine match will understand.

3. Ask a specific question

Ask something about where they say they live: a local landmark, the weather this week, their favorite place to eat. Scammers working from a script often dodge or answer vaguely.

You can also search their name, email address or phone number along with the word "scam". Others may have reported them.

What the site checks, and what it doesn't

On Just Senior Singles, every photo is reviewed before it appears. That catches a lot, but it can't tell you whether a photo belongs to the person using it, and nobody checks what members write about themselves.

Some members have an optional ID badge. To get one, they confirm their identity with LEM Verify using a photo ID and a selfie, and some sign-ups must do this, for example if they join through a VPN or their account is flagged. A badge tells you that someone's ID matched their face when they checked. It doesn't tell you their story is true, so keep the usual care either way.

Profiles are also shared with partner sites in the same network, so you may be contacted by members who joined through another site. Each profile shows where the member joined, and the same checks apply to everyone. How it works explains the network.

If you think a profile is fake

Stop, protect yourself, then report it. You don't need to be certain before you act.

• Stop replying. You don't owe a scammer an explanation.
• Don't send money, gift cards, crypto or personal details. Not even a small amount to "prove" anything.
• Report the profile through the members help center.
• If you've already sent money, contact your bank straight away using the number on your card, then report it. Our guide to where to report a romance scam lists who to contact in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

Feeling foolish is normal, and it's exactly what scammers count on to keep people quiet. These are skilled criminals, and they fool careful, intelligent people every day.

Read more

Our guide to romance scams aimed at people over 50 explains how these scams unfold from first message to first request for money. The safety page covers the rest, and meeting a match in person has a short checklist for when you're ready to meet someone real. If you're writing your own profile, how to write a dating profile over 50 shows how to come across as clearly genuine.