The vast majority of people you meet online are genuine people, just like you.

However, all dating sites are targetted by romance scammers - people who try and strike up a relationship with you in order to scam you out of money.

By following these simple steps, you can spot scammers before you waste any time communicating with them, or worse, give them any money.

• Never give anyone you meet online any money.
  No matter how convincing they sound, why would they need to borrow money off somebody they have never met, or only just met? Any normal person would approach their friends or family.
• Use the FreeDating.co.uk messaging system.
  We catch most scammers very quickly, and when we do we remove them from the site. At this point they have no way of continuing the conversation, unless you give them your email address, MSN or Yahoo handle, Skype ID, or some other way of messaging you. Be wary of anybody who tries to rush you into communicating outside the safety of FreeDating.co.uk.
• Most scammers are based abroad, not in the UK.
  Watch out for people with foreign phone numbers, or ringing tones, who keep unusual hours, or who don't seem to be aware of what is going on in the UK (e.g. news, weather).
• Some scammers are not the gender they claim to be!
  If they will only text or message, and not speak on the phone, this could be why.

Common scams at the moment include:

• Pretending to be a soldier posted abroad, e.g. in Afganistan.
• Pretending to have a foreign job, e.g. oil worker.
• Being stranded somewhere and needing money urgently.

If you spot a scammer, please help us keep FreeDating.co.uk as free of scammers as possible by reporting them using the link in the messaging system.

If you have any concerns, get in touch.