Be on your guard for romance scammers

These confidence tricksters commit the worst of crimes by manipulating emotions, taking your heart and cash too

- BY DR RAJ PERSAUD, CONSULTANT PSYCHIATRIST

ROMANCE scams exploiting our psychological vulnerabilities are on the rise. Confidence tricksters use fake profiles to attract interest, secure trust and defraud victims of large sums of cash.

Of course, these scams don't all involve financial exploitation.

Perhaps the most common is being duped into falling for someone who is not nearly as nice as you first thought - or even not who you thought they were at all.

The scam here targets a different investment - that of emotions, time and commitment. Confidence tricksters detect you feel unhappy and want to change up to someone else more successful and attractive.