When it comes to dating apps and online dating, public records seem to be an underutilized resource. Almost none of these companies run any kind of background check on their users, and they do very little if anything to even verify their users’ identities. This has given rise to a new class of criminals….those who see dating apps as another means of illegal profit. The type of crime we are going to look at here is extremely common. Here is a link to a story from Bronx, New York in which a group of men used a fake profile of a female to lure 5 different men to a location where they were then beaten and robbed. In this case, the 16-year-old female who set up the fake profile pretending to be a 20-year-old woman is also wanted for questioning.
There are two things these men could have protected themselves from if they had conducted any search for public records on this female. The most obvious is that a proper search would have revealed inconsistencies which could have made them become suspicious, and hopefully prevented them from being robbed and assaulted. Secondly, a public records search could have prevented these men from potentially showing up to a residence to meet with a 16-year-old girl. Showing up for a date with an underage individual can result in legal consequences including jail time.
The bottom line is that people should use caution when they decide to show up at a private/unfamiliar location to meet with a complete stranger. All steps must be taken to verify that people are who they say they are. First and most obvious is that individuals should try to get the correct name of the person they are going to meet with. In the case of the story above, these men would have potentially had a cell phone number since there were communications between them and who they thought was a female. They were also given an address. A cell phone number and address could be used to quickly validate any name that was given. While this information is not optimal for something like a pre-employment background check, it could have been used in this case to alert these men that they are responding to a fake profile.
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