When a Match Asks You to Get Verified Somewhere Else

It sounds like the careful thing to do. A match says they like to check before meeting anyone, and sends a link to a free verification site that screens out predators. Or they say they just want to make sure you are a real person, and that they are texting you a code to read back. Both requests come dressed in the language of safety, and both ask for something safety advice tells you to keep: a card number in one, a code in the other. This article is about that disguise. It is not a list of warning signs. It describes what verification on Intently actually looks like, because once you know the shape of the real thing, the fake one stops fitting.

Two Requests, One Disguise

The link is the one the FBI wrote up. On April 26, 2024, its Internet Crime Complaint Center published an alert, I-042624-PSA, under the title New Verification Schemes Target Users of Online Dating Platforms. In the FBI's account, the fraudster meets someone on a dating site or app, shows interest in a relationship, and quickly moves the conversation off the app to an encrypted platform. Then, “Under the guise of safety”, they send a link to a site advertising a “free” verification process that promises protection from predators. The site shows fake articles to look legitimate and asks for a name, phone number, email address and credit card number.

What follows is not a verification. The FBI says victims are redirected to a low-quality dating site that charges costly monthly subscription fees, and that the details people type in can be used for further fraud, such as identity theft, or sold on the dark web. The tell is in the FBI's own description: a process sold as free that still needs a credit card number to finish.

The code comes from a different alert. On October 29, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission described a scam built on Google Voice verification codes. The people it described were selling things online or posting about a lost pet, not dating, and the stranger's line was that they wanted to “verify that you're a real person”. They text you a code and ask you for it. With it, the FTC says, they try to create a Google Voice number linked to your phone number, which they might use to cheat other people while hiding who they are; and with enough of your information, they could get into your accounts or open new ones in your name.

Nothing in that trick depends on where the conversation started. A match who says they want to make sure you are real, and asks you to read back a code you did not ask for, is making the same move.

What Verification Looks Like on Intently

Intently has one kind of identity verification: a check run by Stripe Identity. Verified profiles walks through the feature. What matters here is its shape, because each part of it is the opposite of the two requests above.

When you finish on Stripe's page, it sends you back to the same profile settings page, where the ID Verification section shows what Stripe has reported so far: in progress while it is still checking, verified once the check has passed. The badge appears when Stripe's result arrives, which is not always the moment you get back.

Whose Verification Is It?

Hold the two requests up against that shape and they come apart on their own. Whatever the platform, a “verification” that reaches you as a link or a code from the person you are talking to is theirs, not the platform's. The FBI's tips for the link scheme start there: avoid clicking links from someone you only met online, and do not give sensitive information to someone you only met online. The FTC's advice on codes fits in one line: do not share a verification code “with someone if you didn't contact them first.”

The FBI's scheme also starts with a move off the dating app, and the same alert advises against moving the conversation from a reputable dating site's messaging service, “since many of these offer some safety features.” What leaving costs, with or without a link at the end of it, is the subject of when they ask to move to another app.

And a match who genuinely wants to know you are real has no need to send you anywhere. On Intently there are already two places to look. One is your profile, where the badge shows once you have verified. The other, on Premium and Elite, is Match Preferences, which has a Verified Only switch that shows only people who have verified their identity. If you have the badge, the question is answered before it is asked. If you don't, the answer is in your own settings, and it is yours to start. When you're the one being checked out covers how to answer a fair request without handing over more than it needs.

If Your Card Details Already Went In

Then the useful question is what to do now, and the FBI's alert answers it. These steps are its own:

• Contact your card issuer or bank. The alert says to contact them “as soon as possible” if you find what looks like a fraudulent charge, and to consider closing that card.
• Watch for a charge that repeats. The scheme signs people up for a monthly subscription, so the alert says to keep monitoring your accounts for recurring charges to businesses you don't recognize.
• Report it to the FBI. The alert asks victims to report to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.
• Report the profile and stop replying. The alert says to report suspicious profiles to the dating site and to end all contact.

If it was a code you read out, the FTC's alert links to Google's own steps for reclaiming your number, and asks that the scam be reported at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

So if a match asks you to get verified somewhere else, there is a reply that costs you nothing: on Intently, verification happens in your own settings, and once you have done it, the badge is where they can see it. A person who only wanted to know you are real has what they asked for.