Online Dating Safety
Advice for people who use the dating side of Alien Tavern, or any other dating app.
Alien Tavern has its own Safety Tips page, which also explains how to block and report someone in the app. This page goes further into scams: how they work, how to spot one, and what to do if one happens to you.
Never send money to someone you have only met online.
That means cash, bank and wire transfers, payment apps, gift cards and cryptocurrency, however good the reason sounds. Someone who asks is almost certainly a scammer.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission gives the same advice: "Never send money or gifts to a sweetheart you haven't met in person." The usual stories are an emergency, a hospital bill, a plane ticket to come and see you, or a fee to release a package or an inheritance.
The investment version
A newer kind of scam never asks you for money directly. Over days or weeks of friendly conversation, your match mentions how well they are doing with cryptocurrency or trading, and offers to show you how.
You are sent to a website or app that looks professional. Your first small deposit appears to grow, so you put in more. None of it is real: the site belongs to the scammers and the profits are only numbers on a screen. When you try to take your money out, you are told to pay a "tax" or a "fee" first. Then they disappear with everything you put in.
Signs that this is what is happening:
- They bring up investing, cryptocurrency or a "sure thing", even in passing.
- They want to move the conversation to WhatsApp, Telegram or another app early on.
- They will not video chat or meet, or there is always a reason it fell through.
- They coach you, step by step, through buying cryptocurrency and sending it somewhere.
- You are asked to pay to withdraw your own money.
A person you have only met online is not a source of investment advice, however kind or successful they seem.
Other warning signs
- The profile seems too good to be true: model photos, a glamorous job, or work that keeps them abroad, such as the military, a ship or an oil rig.
- They say they have strong feelings for you very quickly.
- Details of their story change, or do not add up.
- Their photos turn up under another name. You can check by searching the web with their picture (a "reverse image search").
Meeting in person
- Meet in a busy public place the first few times.
- Tell a friend or relative where you are going and when you expect to be back.
- Arrange your own way there and home.
- If something feels wrong, leave.
If it has happened to you
- Stop sending money, even if they threaten you or promise to pay it all back.
- Contact your bank, card company or cryptocurrency exchange right away. Tell them you paid a scammer and ask whether the payment can be stopped or reversed.
- Keep the evidence: messages, usernames, web addresses, wallet addresses and receipts.
- Report it. In the United States, report to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to the FBI at ic3.gov. Report the profile to the app as well, so it can be removed.
- Be wary of anyone who offers to get your money back for a fee. That is usually a second scam.
Being caught by one of these scams does not mean you were foolish. They are run by organized groups who do this full time, and they catch careful, intelligent people every day.
If you are in immediate danger, call your local emergency number first.
More from the FTC
This page was last modified: November 11 2026 01:45:42.