Line and Telegram Chat Dating Turns into Investment Scams

Recently, the Criminal Investigation Bureau released statistics on fraud cases in ROC Year 110 (2021), with “fake dating investment” ranking first and also being the fraud method with the highest total financial loss.

In recent years, as the virtual economy has become a trend, whether it’s cryptocurrency (such as Bitcoin) or non-fungible tokens (NFT), their emergence is often accompanied by tempting messages that are overhyped as being able to generate excess profits, appearing constantly in the ears of a group of tech novices, causing the number of fake investment cases to surge significantly.

Especially with the social culture of online dating, a brand-new fraud method combining investment and dating by fraud syndicates instantly became a prominent trend in society.

In this fraud method, the syndicate uses photos of handsome men and beautiful women or proactively sends private messages to attract the victim’s attention, then inadvertently reveals that they have investments with very high passive income, slowly luring the victim into operating investment fields they are unfamiliar with, such as foreign exchange futures, NFTs, cryptocurrency, and gambling games.

And like all fraud methods, they always give a little sweetener by allowing a small withdrawal in the early stage. Once the lamb thinks they can really make money and invests a large amount of capital, they disappear without a trace.

Not only is the investment amount lost entirely and the investment project vanishes into thin air, but even the accounts opened and the investment platforms are all fabricated.

Investment Dating Scam Methods Exposed

The Criminal Investigation Bureau specially provided a case: a 60-year-old woman surnamed Chen received a message from a stranger, a netizen surnamed Li, on Facebook Messenger one day. At first, the chat content was normal dating, and after chatting for a few days they added each other on LINE to continue interacting. During the chat, the netizen surnamed Li would inadvertently reveal that he was quite knowledgeable about investment, and that his source of passive income was renting mining machines, which made Ms. Chen somewhat tempted.

Ms. Chen began following the netizen surnamed Li’s advice to remit money to a cryptocurrency platform to exchange for cryptocurrency, then remitted the cryptocurrency to a third-party exchange. Not long after, she really received a profit withdrawal of over US$1,000, which made Ms. Chen even more convinced that this investment was absolutely genuine.

Ms. Chen then invested a large amount of funds amounting to over NT$10 million. When she finally wanted to cash out her profits, the exchange’s customer service claimed that Ms. Chen’s account had been found by the Financial Supervisory Commission to be involved in money laundering and that she needed to pay an additional 20% deposit — only then did she realize she had been scammed.

The Criminal Investigation Bureau stated that fake investment scams initially let the victim invest a small principal and successfully apply for withdrawal, putting the victim off guard. After the victim increases the investment, they begin to delay the withdrawal with various reasons such as needing to deduct tax first or pay a deposit, and subsequently the website or app is shut down without warning, leaving the victim with nothing.

The Criminal Investigation Bureau appeals to the public not to easily trust investment channels of unknown origin. Any investment carries risk; there is no such thing as guaranteed profit with no loss. High returns must be accompanied by high risk. Hearing “guaranteed profit with no loss” or “100% profit” must be a scam. The public should choose investment targets they have deeply understood themselves, not trust tips given by others, and should adopt an investment rather than speculation mindset — only then can they protect themselves. Never use your own wallet as an experiment.

In this type of scam, the criminals often play multiple roles such as netizen, investment advisor, and customer service, and contact the victim through different Line accounts. The public can make good use of the “fraud Line IDs” announced weekly on the “165 Anti-Fraud” fan page to first filter whether the other party’s Line account has ever been reported as a fraud account before investing or dating online, to reduce the risk of being scammed. If you have any questions, you are also welcome to call the 165 anti-fraud hotline for consultation.

Further Reading

1. Cryptocurrency from Divine Invention, Coin Circle to Rural Fraud: The B~F Three-Stage Argument on Attribution