Do Adult Groomers Target On or Offline?
Take a seat whilst we tell you this / the results may surprise you!
Groomers are not, primarily, lurking around online waiting to pounce.
Our research has shown that they are more likely to be known already to the victim: the groomers are lurking amongst us.
We asked the question: “How do you believe your groomer knew about you?”
Of 376 respondents (people who self identified as having been groomed as adults):
234 (62%) knew their groomer already (for example through work, a sporting activity or a social activity)
53 people (14%) know that their groomer had studied their social media/online profile
19 (5%) met their groomer on a dating site.
Fake Identities
We wanted to take a deeper look at online grooming: of the people who know for certain that their groomer had used a fake identity, almost 60% knew that their dating or online profiles had been used to target them. (Most people’s grooming DIDN’T start online) Of these, one in three had been targetted online. Of those who were unsure whether their groomer used their real identity, around a third knew that their groomer had used their online profiles, dating or social media, to target them.
Dating and social media sites are helping enable the kinds of groomers who want to diguise their identities.
We had noted that a number of people that identified as not being straight/heterosexual were groomed by people with fake identities. We took a deeper dive: 7.1% of our straight/heterosexual respondents had been targetted by people using, or believed to have used, fake identities. It actually fell to 5% of people who identified as non-straight/heterosexual (bisexual, queer, gay etc).
All About the Money?
Banks, the media…. a large amount of coverage is given to people forming relationships to rip their targets off financially.
Our data, is, we realise, somewhat skewed because our respondents self identify as having been groomed. People who have met people online and been ripped off have the answer to why it happened - money - and are therefore less likely to come looking for answers and find CAAGe/respond to our research.
With that proviso made:
Almost 7% of our respondents were directly groomed for money.
Almost half of groomers forming relationships in order to rip people off were likely to use false identies or be believed to have used a false identity (on line AND off!)
People who have been groomed for money are as likely to have been targetted online and through dating sites as targetted offline.
The number of people grooming for financial reasons, rather than with a direct intention to rip off, is almost certainly understated. People who were groomed because they are wealthy for lifestyle benefits were excluded from this figure - we were trying to get to who is grooming explicitly to rip off. Similarly there are indications from responses that people with recent bereavements (and imminent inheritances) have put ‘vulnerability’ type responses to questions about their groomer’s reasons for targetting them. We also treated trafficking into the sex industry as a separate category, yet ultimately this too is about using someone to make money.
Conclusions
If 10% of the population use/have used dating sites, but only 5% of victims knowingly meet their groomer there, there is no direct correlation between the use of dating sites/social sites and being groomed. We’re reluctant to say that dating sites are safer, at risk of luring people into a false sense of security, but there is certainly no cause to believe that they are, in terms of grooming at least, more risky than anywhere else.
Although 2.5% of our respondents had been groomed into sexual extortion (trafficking, prostitution, or providing online images), 0.5% (a fifth) had been recruited via dating sites. However, it is estimated that 0.2% of the general population are involved in prostitution, sex work or sexual exploitation. (These figures are notoriously difficult to estimate accurately.) From the small numbers we are using, we estimate that it is more likely that you will be groomed into sexual exploitation on a dating site than in the general population, but that this risk is far from common. (It is, however, devastating when it happens.)
If you are looking for love on a dating site, you are only as likely as meeting offline to be targetted for money (although this may, of course, be understated). Whilst TSB’s research suggests that a 35% of frauds began on Facebook, including Facebook Dating, 24% on Tinder, 21% on Plenty of Fish and 9% on Match.com, these stats are clearly where online fraud started, not fraud as a whole.
It pays to be GENERALLY fraud aware. Being certain about someone’s identity online could reduce your risk of financial fraud by about 50%.
There is a lot of effort put into telling people never to send money to someone they haven’t met/only know online. Groomers make their victims feel like they know, perhaps even have feelings for, them. The message perhaps needs to be wider.
And to Close
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a deeper dive into the data around the research participants who met offline. But today is Day Two of Romance Fraud Awareness Week, a day dedicated to romance fraud initiated online and through dating sites. At 19% of our cohort, that translates to roughly one in five victims of adult grooming having been targetted online.
On the basis of our data, we would add the following to standard dating sites’ suggestions to keep safe:
Consider Your Profiles Carefully
Think hard about what information you’re giving away on your dating/social media profile.
The kind of information you might want to avoid putting on a dating profile or social media site (to deter scammers), includes details of RECENT big changes - divorces, bereavements, separations. This ‘hot state’ may be used by groomers to lure you in. (Lottery wins will bring them in like flies around a honeypot, of course, but we probably don’t need to say that!!)
Being a single parent, a recent immigrant, having a long term illness or disability or being autistic are factors that can make you a more appealing target to a groomer. You may want to save this information for once a conversation has started so that groomers can’t deliberately use this information to profile you.
Many of our respondents feel that that they were targetted because they are overly naive or innocent, too nice or empathetic. No-one should have to stop being nice to appease groomers. In reality, groomers are just as likely to pick on someone who’s a challenge to them. There is no right answer. It can, however, pay on-line daters to read their own profiles to see what ‘vibe’ they’re giving off.
Make sure the person you are speaking to is real
Although dating sites try and keep you on their platforms for as long as possible, we suggest meeting up in person in a safe, neutral place, as soon as possible, as a great way of checking that the person you are talking to is who they say they are. This is harder, of course, with long distance relationships, but being unable to meet up easily one of the biggest ‘red flags’ that someone may not be genuine.
Note that we do say MEET UP rather than COMMUNICATE off the website. Whilst on the online platform, you can block someone from contact to a large extent. And if things start to go wrong, the platform/app admins can check out someone suspicious.
This has a couple of added benefits. In a World in which AI bots are being used on dating sites, suggesting meeting also helps weed these out. And we all put our best photos on sites, so you can sanity check that Gerald from Glasgow’s goatee beard is genuinely as clean and tidy as his pictures; that Laura from Liverpool’s lovely hair hasn’t been photoshopped from another body part; and that ‘B’ from Bournemouth is genuinely 55 and not a ‘Babe in Arms’ pretending to be a grown up.
(Of course, normal rules apply: let someone know where you’re going. Meet in a public place. Make sure you have your own transport home.)
CAAGe has a page on the role of dating sites in grooming. We believe dating sites can and should do more to protect their users. (We reported a notorious sexual groomer on dating sites, and whilst we heard from them that they would deal with it and ban him, in reality nothing happened.) As part of that, we have undertaken a project to help people report problems to dating sites more easily/their policies. It’s only part way through, but the information is slowly panning out. (So if you have an hour to spare and fancy researching one for for us, you would have our eternal gratitude - contact us!)
Keep your eye on the CAAGe blog for more!
