



Many young women post on these sites, even if perhaps jokingly, to declare that they’re on the hunt for a sugar daddy. However, this comes loaded with risk.Ī quick search on Twitter reveals the ubiquity of such scams also on social media. In a world where many people have lost their jobs during the pandemic and where a lot of young people struggle to fund their studies with low-paid work and mounting student debts, the prospect of meeting a rich benefactor is an increasingly attractive one.
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RELATED READING: 5 common scams targeting teens – and how to stay safe Indeed, as is the case with ‘mainstream’ romance scams, the real number of victims is impossible to tell, as many of them are too embarrassed or traumatized to report their experience. Police and security experts have been out in force for years warning lonely hearts not to fall for the romance fraudsters whose schemes cost victims more than US$950 million in 2021 alone.īut have you heard of sugar daddy, or sugar momma, scams? These are designed to exploit a fast-growing niche in the online dating world: that of young people looking for someone to subsidize their studies or lifestyles in return for companionship – one leading website for such ‘sugaring’ reportedly has more than 38 million members around the world, including half a million students in the UK alone.īritish bank NatWest identified more than 40 female students who fell victim to sugar daddy scammers in the UK last summer alone, noting that the actual number of victims is likely much higher. The world is a confusing and lonely place sometimes. The bitter truth about how fraudsters dupe online daters in this new twist on romance fraud
