KOCHI : Dating apps are on the surge, and with the leap comes an increase in active cases of fraud. The ease of creating accounts on any other applications is probably contributing to the rising issue.
In the latest, cyber fraudsters targeted a student leader by creating fake profiles under her name on various dating apps. Her pictures were lifted from her Instagram account to add to the profiles, presumably for ‘authentication’ purposes.
The complainant, who chose to remain anonymous, said, “I study in Kochi and have been active in student politics. I have a lot of friends on social media, courtesy my political activities. I recently got to know about a bogus account carrying my name and pictures on Tinder through friends at my native place. They received an invitation for casual dating from the account. The impersonator took my pictures from Instagram to create the profile.”
Subsequently, after reporting the account through Tinder, the profile was taken down.
However, things didn’t end there as a similar profile under her name appeared in another dating app. “Another profile was traced from a lesser-known dating app. I have reported the profile and I am currently awaiting action. My initial assumption was that the miscreant must be someone among my political rivals. However, the requests were sent to the friends at my native place. Also, my tenure as the elected college union-bearer came to an end recently, so, I highly doubt that someone who is a friend with me on Instagram must be the person behind the impersonation,” she said.
The Ernakulam cyber police have registered a case on this score and initiated a probe to trace down those involved in creating the fake profile. A case under the IT Act has been registered.