Building a world where LGBTQ+ people can find safe spaces to be themselves is at the heart of everything Hornet does. The fundamental part of our mission is to keep our digital home free from scammers, fake accounts, and spam. We have always used several defenses against spam attacks, and we continue to improve these measures. We can’t give you the exact details because we don’t want scammers to know what we’re doing. However, we can tell you that we have brought in some verification procedures that will help us with that.
Online scams have existed for a long time, appearing in letters, emails, and now apps. Over the years, Hornet has built many defensive measures to keep our community safe from fraudsters and fakes, including the use of AI and manual account checks. Still, online scamming is a profitable business and a way to live for some people, so they will always keep inventing new tools to get around our defensive measures. While we do a tremendous amount of work every day to keep them off the app by blocking thousands of scam profiles, some still get through.
You may wonder why you need to read this. The answer is simple: it is easier to protect yourself when you know what to look for. In this guide, we compiled a list of the most common types of spam/scam accounts you may encounter online. This is certainly not an exhaustive list of how they behave online, because scammers can be very resourceful, but it will help you understand the signs of potentially malicious accounts.
General Spam
Let’s start with what spam attacks are and what typical spam messages look like. A spam attack is an organized and unauthorized use of an app to send large numbers of messages to many users. These messages are usually sent from fake or hacked profiles. They often include unrealistic advertisements or links that ask you to click on them.
Spam attacks can negatively affect your experience in the app. If you ever receive a message that promotes a website or claims that you won a prize, do not click the link. These attacks feed on the number of users who open the links. The more clicks, the more they send spam messages; if there are no clicks, the spam attack would be pointless and would stop.
Here are examples of common spam messages:
- “Will you look at my d**k as I jerk off?” (link to the website)
- (Link to the website) – “Link to my creampie”
- “Hi, can meet today, check my ***** profile” (link to the website)
- “If you like me, find me on (link to the website) My nickname is ****** Register and just use the search bar and put my nick into.”
- “Community for finding sex in your city, enter this link in your browser” (link to the website)
- “Find yourself a guy and have an evening of sex with him” (link to the website)
Most of the time, there is no real person sending these messages. They are sent by automated systems (bots) that follow an algorithm.
Scam profiles are completely different. There is always an actual person behind the profile, and they can adjust their behavior to your conversation. This is why they are the most dangerous because they can find your weak spot and use it to their advantage. Let’s review the most common types of scammers.
Romance Scam
Romance scammers can be very difficult to resist. There is always a real person behind these profiles. They understand psychology well, which makes it easy for them to find your weak points, and they know perfectly well how to make you believe their story.
Here are their typical characteristics and behaviors:
- Profile from overseas: Usually, the profile contacting you will be from another country. Think twice: why would someone thousands of miles away contact you?
- Suspicious or staged photos: The photos used by scammers are usually of poor quality and staged. Ordinary people do not usually take such photos. Never neglect to spend time googling these photos. Most likely, you will find them publicly available on the Internet.
- “Heroic” or dramatic job story: They would state that they come from a rich country (such as the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, etc.) but are military personnel on a peacekeeping mission in another country, are volunteer doctors helping in poor countries, are civil engineers or mining workers working on projects abroad, or are working for an NGO company. Their goal is to get you interested in their profession and the fact that they help the world and work abroad. Thus, they try to draw you into further conversation. If you were told this story in one of the first messages, be wary and continue communication at your own risk.
- Fast emotional attachment: Pay attention to the way your conversation develops. Almost from the very beginning, you will be sold the idea that they are honest and trustworthy, you will be convinced that age and distance do not matter to them, and you will be told that they are looking for true love. You may be told heartbreaking stories about how they were hurt and broken up with in the past, and how they now have a hard time trusting people. The only purpose of this is to gain your trust and compassion, to make it so that you feel uncomfortable asking additional, unnecessary questions, since this will make it more difficult for them to mislead you, because it is easy to get entangled in your own lies.
- Money request after emotional setup: Eventually, after establishing an online relationship, they will ask you for money. The story will be urgent: problems with payments in the company they work for, being stuck in a foreign country, and so on. You may be asked to transfer money to an account, use a fast payment system, or buy a gift card that they can cash out. If you reach this stage, stop communication immediately, report the profile to us, and do not transfer money or buy anything under any circumstances.
- Attempts to move the chat outside Hornet: Social media and dating apps are becoming very effective at identifying and blocking these types of profiles, so scammers will try to move your conversation to another messaging app as soon as possible. Never give out your contact information and never move the conversation off the Hornet app.
This is what typical romance scam messages will look like:
- “Hello, I’m [Name] from USA here looking for a serious relationship with a good partner, if you are interested in me, text me now on [Messenger] for better conversation…” (Phone Number)
- “I’m from USA Florida but now in Syria in peace keeping mission, I’m an active soldier, I have less than two months to get back home and I believe my location doesn’t bother you?”
- “Looking for a serious relationship? Text me on [Messenger] for better conversation.” (Phone Number)
- “Hello handsome how are you doing today my dear? I am [Name] cook from England and you?”
- “Am here for serious relationship and looking for soulmate”
- “A warm hey does not come from the lips only but also from the heart that love…. Hello and how are you doing Teddy Bear?…. I Am doing great..I am [Name], seeking for life partner, a computer technician and an E_6 sergeant in the army. What about you?”
Sugar Baby Scam
Similar to romance scammers, there is always a real person behind these profiles. However, Sugar Baby scammers are usually more direct. In the very first message, you may be asked to become their “daddy-boy” type partner. This type of scammer will offer to send you sexually explicit photos and videos of themselves in exchange for financial help from you
Here are their typical characteristics and behaviors:
- Unrealistic attractiveness: In most cases, a typical scammer will pretend to be a young, skinny boy (what is commonly described as a twink). Be extremely careful if you are contacted by someone who normally would not get in touch with you. This is one of the main signs that you are talking to a scammer.
- Targets older users with steady income: The main target audience is older men who are already established in life and have no financial problems. After all, their main goal is to get money from you. The way scammers think comes down to a simple rule: the older the victim, the more likely they are to have money to spend.
- Sexual teasing early on: They are sexually explicit in their conversation with you. Usually, at the very beginning, they will tease you by showing what you can get in exchange for money. The photos will be chosen to make it very difficult to resist—they will be really good. Scammers know their business and know how to choose the right photos.
- Risk of blackmail: Never share personal or financial information that can identify you. Try not to share sexual photos. The reason is very simple: The scammers can say that they are underage and start blackmailing you, demanding money. They will threaten to reveal your sex life to relatives, contact law enforcement agencies, and so on. In such a situation, do not give money. The best action is to contact law enforcement agencies first. This case is described in more detail in the Extortion and Blackmailing section below.
This is what typical sugar baby scam messages will look like:
- “Hi! I’m [Name] from Chicago USA, I’m a Gay sugar daddy looking for a gay sugar baby, text me on [Messenger] if interested.” (Messenger account: @n******1)
- “Hey there! 👋 I’m [Name Surname] 35years. Do you mind being a gay sugar baby? Coz I’m looking for one. If so, [messenger] is a better place to link up.” (Messenger account: @L******1)
- “What do you seek for here..? – Love💘 – Care😍 – Money🌹 – Relationship💋 – Sugar Daddy💯”
Sugar Daddy Scam
Opposite to sugar babies, this type of scammer will claim that they want to spoil you with lots of money in exchange for hot content. Typically, they will tell you how much they would give for a certain type of content you may send to them. The main audience of this type of scammer is younger users who may have financial difficulties.
Here are their typical characteristics and behaviors:
- Photos showing wealth: Typically, this will be an older man contacting you with such an offer. The photographs will clearly show that they have a rich lifestyle, including big houses, expensive cars, traveling to different countries, and anything that proves their financial status. But in most cases, these will be photos taken from the Internet or stolen from Instagram. Spend a little time searching for these photos on the Internet.
- Attempts to move your conversation to another messenger: They will try to move your conversation to another messenger, asking for your social media accounts, etc. We do not recommend giving out your contact information and moving the conversation off the Hornet app.
- Use of quick money transfer services: In most cases, they will try to connect with you through applications or services for making quick money transfers. These are services where you can link your bank card from which transfers will be made. Scammers try to avoid using official banking applications since this will not allow them to use stolen cards, will reveal their identity, and the bank will likely block any suspicious money transfer. Never fall into this and do not reveal any of your financial information.
- Request for a small transfer first: They may ask you to transfer them a small amount of money first. They will give you different reasons for this: that they want to check that you have a valid bank account; they may say that they sent you a money transfer, but it came back and in order to check the correctness of your bank details and establish a connection with your account, they need to receive a transfer of a small amount of money from you; sometimes they will tell you a story about how the previous boy cheated and ran away after receiving money, so to “prove your seriousness,” you must make a small transfer. Never transfer money to people you don’t know, whatever the circumstances are.
- “Accidental transfer” method: You may start receiving small amounts of money from a scammer, and then they will “accidentally” transfer a large amount of money to you and ask you to return some of it. In reality, the initial money is transferred from a stolen credit card, and when they ask you to “return” some of it, you are actually sending your own money to the scammer. This is how they move money from stolen cards into their own accounts, and you may unknowingly become an accomplice to a crime.
- Risk of blackmail: Recently, this type of scammer started resorting to blackmailing users. Their main goal is to get your personal data, find your friends and family, and convince you to send explicit photos. Once they have this information, they can threaten to expose your sexual life unless you send money. This type of scam is very common in countries where being openly gay is dangerous. Be reluctant to share your personal details or explicit photos with people you don’t know well enough. More detail is provided below in the Extortion and Blackmailing section below.
This is what typical sugar daddy scam messages will look like:
- “Hey babe I’m ready to be your sugar daddy and I will pay you your allowance weekly if you are interested text me on [Messenger, Phone Number, or Line ID]”
- “Hi! I’m [Name] from Chicago USA, I’m a Gay sugar daddy looking for a gay sugar baby, text me on [Messenger, Phone Number or Line ID]”
- “Hey, I’m looking for an honest and cool sugar baby, text me on [Messenger, Phone Number, or Line ID] for better conversation”
Extortion and Blackmailing Scam
This type of scam has been on the rise across all social media platforms, especially on dating apps. Scammers will try to collect as much information as possible about your identity and personal life, and then use this information to extort money from you.
Here are their typical characteristics and behaviors:
- Attempts to move the conversation off Hornet: Almost from the very beginning, scammers will try to move the conversation to another messenger such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, or Skype. Why? Because moving to another platform allows them to learn more about you — your phone number, your real photos, your social network profiles, your email address, where you live and work, and who your friends are. We do not recommend giving out your contact information or moving your conversation off the Hornet app.
- Targets people with discreet or hidden lifestyles: Victims are often people who want to keep their sexual life private. For example, married people, bisexual men, closeted men, or people who live in places where being openly gay is dangerous. Since they do not want their personal life revealed, they are easier to blackmail.
- Collecting personal details: The scammer’s goal is to get as much of your personal information as possible so that they can easily identify you. Be careful sharing any information that could help them identify where you live, where you work, and your social circle. A scammer may present innocent-sounding reasons for asking these questions. If you are being asked for more information about yourself than usual early in the conversation, be wary and proceed with extreme caution — or stop the conversation entirely.
- Encouraging the exchange of explicit content: Be careful when exchanging sexually explicit photos, especially if you do it outside of Hornet, from your social media accounts, or using messengers registered to your phone. Before sharing sexually explicit photos, it is worth establishing a strong connection with the person, making sure that they are a real person, and that the photos they send you are not taken from the Internet. If you feel tempted to share explicit photos of yourself, make sure that there is nothing on them that can help to identify you.
Typically, the conversation develops in one of these directions:
- Blackmail based on identity alone: In this scenario, the victim is a person who prefers discreet encounters and does not want anyone to know they are using a gay dating app. Typically, scammers will be looking for married guys, bi-guys, curious ones, and those who have to live a discreet life because being gay in their area is life-threatening. In this case, the scammers will first look for any information that can help them reveal your identity. They don’t even need to get any compromising photos from you. If the information in their hands is enough to prove your use of gay dating apps, this is when their mission is completed. They will start threatening to reveal your identity to your relatives, your friends, and coworkers, and make your sexual life public if you don’t pay them money.
- Blackmail based on sexual content: In the next case, it doesn’t really matter to a scammer who will be their victim; old or young, discreet or openly gay. Their goal is to get sexual videos and photos from you, or sometimes screenshots of sex chats will be enough for them to start threatening you. They will try to drag you into a sex video call, which they can secretly record. The video you will see during this call will be a fake, pre-recorded video taken from the internet. Once they have the sexual content they need, they will blackmail you, saying that they will send these photos, videos, and chats to all your friends and publish them on the internet if you do not send them a certain amount of money.
- “Underage” blackmail scheme: This case is one of the most insidious ones. You will be contacted by a young-looking boy of incredible beauty, and almost from the very beginning, he will engage in overly sexual conversation with you, share explicit content, and ask you for the same in return. Remember, their goal is to elicit a response from you. Once you start exchanging sexual messages with them or sharing explicit photos, you’ve fallen for their bait. Very soon, you will be told that the person you had a sexual conversation with is underage. They may even act out a short scene where you get contacted by their “parents,” who are willing to turn a blind eye to your behavior if you give them money; otherwise, they’ll go to the police. The victim will be very scared and will easily part with the money. But you shouldn’t do this; take a breath and assess the situation. Maybe you are communicating with scammers, and you should contact law enforcement agencies instead. Believe us, you are not alone in this; this type of fraud is very common on the internet. We can assure you that Hornet takes any possible underage cases very seriously and normally removes them from the app very quickly. If you think someone is underage, please take a minute to report the potential underage user to us.
This is what typical extortion and blackmailing scam messages will look like:
- “I was just about to delete Hornet from my phone, you sent me a message. Write me on [Messenger] [phone number]”
- “Hello dear, they are bothering me a lot from here and I haven’t gotten used to it either. I will give you my number, let’s continue on [Messenger], if our minds match we can meet.”
- “Good night, welcome to my circle of friendship ❤️ You have [messenger] for us to be friends there too my angel? ❤️”
Investment Scam
This type of scam has been around for quite some time. Their goal is to get you interested in a quick and large increase in your capital with usually small investments. They will try to convince you that your money will grow many times in a short period. But the reality is that there are no reliable investment tools that can increase your capital 10 times in a short time. Even if such opportunities existed, no one would actively offer them to strangers. If someone is promising this, be extremely cautious.
Here are their typical characteristics and behaviors:
- The scammer claims to be a financial professional: They may say they are a bank worker, a representative of a financial services company, an investor, or a “crypto guru.” Remember, it is always you who seeks to increase your own capital. It is never in someone else’s interest to randomly help you earn money. Thus, you will be the one looking for a safe place for your savings, and not a stranger who contacts you on a dating platform. We recommend ending such conversations immediately, no matter how trustworthy the person seems to you.
- The offer sounds overly sweet or too good to be true: You may already imagine yourself driving a luxury car, living in a huge house, flying first class. STOP — there are no such miracles in the world. Even a few years are often not enough to double your capital. If someone promises you that your investment will increase 2, 5, or 10 times in a short period, this is simply not true.
- They ask you to switch to another messaging app: Reject any requests to switch to another messenger to continue the conversation, no matter how attractive the offer may seem. As mentioned several times in this guide, switch to other apps for communication only if there is really a need for this. Only do so if you 100% trust the person and they don’t potentially need anything from you.
- They send you links: Never click on any links sent to you by a stranger, as this could allow them to gain access to your device and steal your personal data. You may be asked to follow a link only so that you can familiarize yourself with the company and the investment instruments offered. You may also be offered to visit a website in order to make investments (buy stock, cryptocurrency, etc.). The website may look high-quality and legitimate, including registration forms, support chat, and investment dashboards, but once you enter your data and make the “investment,” the scammers will have access to your personal details and your money.
- “Accidental Transfer” Fraud: This is a rather unusual type of fraud, and we already mentioned it briefly in the Sugar Daddy Scam section. In this case, scammers first transfer money to you and then ask you to transfer the entire amount or part of it to another account. The reason they do this is simple: first, they establish a sense of trust — “how could you not trust someone who just sent you money?” — which makes you more relaxed and more willing to send your own money in return. Second, the money you received was almost certainly transferred using a stolen credit card. When they ask you to return the funds, you are actually sending your own money to them, while the stolen-card transfer gets reversed later. As a result, law enforcement is more likely to have questions for you, not for someone who cannot be identified or found.
This is what typical investment scam messages will look like:
- “I’m here looking for friends or a long term relationship, are you too?”
- “I seldom use this software. You can add my [messenger] so that we can get to know each other better. This is my number [***********]”*
- “Sorry, I seldom use this. We can add [messenger].”
- “Nice to meet you. Where are you from? What is your job?”
- “I’m financial manager, how about you?”
- “I’m quality control manager at Ubisoft Game company how about you ? Are you at work?”
- “I am here in Limerick just visiting. I originally from UK. I work as Risk analyst. What do you do for a living?”
- “I travel a lot of country for my work, but our company is based in Australia”
Scammers Sending External Links or Asking for Verification Codes
The most common type of fraud is sending spam messages with links to third-party resources. It is a well-known fact that you should never open links received from unknown people, applications, organizations, etc. In most cases, by clicking on the link, you will simply see annoying advertising, but some of these websites will ask you to register first — this is how bad actors gain access to your personal data.
Here are some of the things to look out for:
- Requests for verification codes: A type of fraud that has become increasingly popular recently is when a scammer asks you to share a verification code. You may be given innocent-sounding reasons why you “should” tell them the code. However, if someone asks you to provide a verification code, or if you receive a verification code (password reset, account login, etc.) that you did not request, this is 100% a scam. Never give these codes to anyone, including your friends and relatives. Always remember, scammers can pretend to be people you know, government officials, law enforcement representatives, or bank or financial employees. Remember, verification codes are usually used as part of the two-step verification for access to many applications, accounts, government, and bank services. It is also commonly used as part of the verification when registering a new account. It is quite possible that some of your personal data (such as email, phone, etc.) may already be known to scammers, as they were leaked to the Internet earlier during one of the major cyber-attacks. Therefore, by providing someone with your verification code, you may be giving them access to extremely sensitive accounts (like banking or government app accounts) or allowing them to register a fraudulent account in your name.
- Fraudulent security resource provider: We haven’t encountered this type of scam on Hornet yet, but have seen other platforms report requests to register on a security website or app. A scammer would tell you a story about how they were attacked, beaten, robbed, etc., on one of their dates, and they are not ready to meet you unless you register on one of the resources “guaranteeing a safe date.” As a rule, this third-party website or app will ask for your personal information, including your photo, name, email, address, or even for a little deposit “guaranteeing your good behavior on the date.” In reality, there are no online resources that can guarantee anyone a safe date. The main rule remains the same: never give out your personal data to strangers, unverified organizations, suspicious websites or apps, etc.
Scammers Pretending to be Hornet Officials
Some brazen scammers may pretend to be Hornet employees. Typically, they would try to get your personal information from you, justifying this by the need to verify your account. Remember, Hornet Staff will never ask you for your personal or financial information. If this is a real, legitimate Hornet representative asking you for this information, we always tell you to contact us at feedback@hornet.com to provide needed information, and we would never ask you to send any private information in messages. If you have grounds to suspect that this is not an official Hornet account or representative, please contact us at feedback@hornet.com, and our support team will advise you.
Some scammers might contact you with promises of cash prizes from Hornet, telling you that you were the lucky one to win the lottery. If Hornet were running a promo or a lottery, then this event would get due broad coverage in the app, so you would definitely not miss the event. If you haven’t seen any prior announcements about upcoming promos or lotteries, and someone is telling you that you won 300K bucks in a lottery, this is absolutely a scam. Instead of replying to them, get in touch with us at feedback@hornet.com.
We have tried to collect the most common types of scammers in this article, but this is far from a complete list. Always be on guard and remember, people can be very inventive in their attempts to steal your money, personal and financial information, gain access to your accounts, and then blackmail you.
Still need help? Email us at feedback@hornet.com. Please include your username so we can find your account faster. It appears on your profile page, at the top center of the screen, and begins with the “@” symbol.