Tips to protect yourself against rip offs

Tips to protect yourself against rip offs

The internet can be a risky place if you don’t know your way around. Scammers are not easy to recognize and a rip off can be realised to late so a lot of money can be lost by this point. But fortunately there are some tips and tricks to spot a scam and fight it before it is too late. If you have been a victim of a rip off on a dating website you should definitely react and do something. There are some ways to defend yourself accordingly. After all, you want to get your money back if possible. That would be the best and fairest solution – but that does not work out easy. In any case it helps you to not lose extra money.

If you follow out tips you can make the life of the rip off operator a little bit harder which is a positive side effect.

How can you get your money back?

Test winner

Casual Dating

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Website

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Dating sites

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Matchmaker

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Subscription rip-off

  1. If you stepped into a subscription trap which can happen quite fast it is very important that you cancel the subscription immediately, by informing the operator directly by e-mail in rapid time. It is very important that you act as fast as possible as some operators ignore the pink slip or deny it without any reason. Then you have to act again and send a letter with the cancelation or even consider getting a lawyer. If the operator is located in the UK, the pink slip should also be sent by e-mail that is registered on the rip off website.
  2. If you receive reminders or letters of collection agencies on behalf of the operator it is very important that you keep calm. Of course the rip off operators will try to intimidate the customers so that they still get the money. But as a rule, the operators never go to court because they cannot prove a legally valid contract. So if you receive such a letter which can happen even if you never bought credit or signed up for a subscription, just act in the same way as the operators and do nothing at all.

But you have to make a move if you receive a dunning notice or another official letter.

Test winner

Casual Dating

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Website

Test winner

Dating sites

Report
Website

Test winner

Matchmaker

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Website

Fake chat and subscription rip off

Credit card / direct debit

If you had been ripped off and lost money inform your bank company immediately that you have been cheated, and they should do anything that is possible to return the money in any case.

If you paid your membership or credits with your credit card you have enough time to return the money. The legal period runs for eight weeks. After this time it depends on the goodwill of the card provider: If your payment was made by direct debit, it is also possible to charge back within a period of eight weeks. In the case of an unapproved and unauthorised debit, it is e possible to have the amount reversed within the following 13 months. So there is time to act but it is important that you do something as soon as you recognize the scam.

PayPal

Many people pay with the service of PayPal because it works quick and easy. If a debit was made via PayPal you should write a complaint to the customer service immediately. The very good thing about PayPal is that the customer support will reply in a short period and is very helpful. With PayPal you have the chance to reclaim your money retroactively up to three months after. If you made your payment by credit card, even up to six months after.

In most of the cases the money will be refunded because the dating rip off operators don’t want trouble as they also need the services of PayPal which is an advantage for you. PayPal is known to freeze accounts until the facts are clarified.

Skrill, MicroPayment, Klarna, Instant, etc.

Fake chat and subscription rip off

If the payment was made via one of the mentioned service providers you have to inform your provider about fraud immediately. Most payment service providers give you the chance to do that retroactively. The period of time you can take this chance varies from provider to provider. You will find this information in terms and conditions of the service provider or in the FAQ. Of course you can also ask the customer support.

The dating rip off operators don’t want to have any trouble with a payment service provider just like PayPal. They need to avoid problems with the other service providers as in the worst case for them there accounts could be blocked or frozen for a long time.

First of all it is very important to make a complaint immediately if you spot the scam. The faster the complaints are made, the faster the rip off operator’s accounts will be closed. That means that the operator will lose a lot of money which is good.

We check many dating portals

We can only advise you to always read the terms and conditions of a dating portal thoroughly. If the operator is located abroad and/or the imprint and the terms and conditions are displayed as a graphic you should be very careful and rethink the registration.

In any case you can always ask us and inform us about any rip off. Only then we are in the position to check the website. Next step from our side is that we will write a corresponding test report to warn others of a dating rip off.

We check many dating portals and we do have a list of trustful and very good dating websites. If you check out and register on one of our test winners you will not have to fear any kind of rip off.