Online dating is a convenient and popular way to find a soulmate, or just chat with interesting people. But, unfortunately, these sites and apps are often associated with deception, fraud and other extremely unpleasant interactions.
According to surveys conducted in the United States, more than 60% of dating service users have encountered deception and fraud in one way or another. Many people even lost money because of it, or their personal data was obtained by attackers.
One of the reasons why there’s so much deception in web dating is that communication takes place primarily through text chat. In other words, you cannot be 100% sure that the person on the other side of the screen is who they say they are. That this is their real name. That the photos in the profile are new, and not taken a year, five or ten years ago… Such cases do happen, and very often.
And that’s where video chat comes into play!
How Video Chat Helps You Avoid Being Scammed When Dating Online
A video chat service is a platform for dating and communication, where communication takes place via video. So you immediately see and hear a person, read their intonations, facial expressions and gestures. In this way, a much more objective and accurate impression of the other person is formed than regular text messaging can give. This means there are more chances to develop a relationship with this person.
If we talk about so-called chatroulettes (or random video chats), one of the pioneers in this niche was the Omegle service, which was launched back in 2009 and very quickly attracted the attention of a large audience. The opportunity to meet and communicate with random interlocutors via video chat was very warmly received by users. The number of visitors to the Omegle website often reached 2 million people per day. Omegle closed down in 2023.
Of course, Omegle’s popularity did not go unnoticed. And very soon all sorts of alternatives began to appear:
- OmegleAlternative.com — a video chat that offers users an error-free gender filter. Plus, https://omeglealternative.com/ has a built-in message translator and excellent moderation.
- OmeTV — another good alternative to Omegle, which also has a gender filter, mobile applications and a built-in translator. The platform is quite minimalist and fairly user-friendly.
These are just a couple of great Omegle alternatives that you can try now, and choose the one that suits you best. There are many more options out there. They differ in design, functionality, premium subscription options, search settings for chat partners and other features. Therefore, the best way to find “your” video chat is to try several platforms and choose the one you like best.
Chatroulettes Have Pushed Traditional Web Dating Into Major Changes
If you have previously used popular dating sites and apps such as Tinder, Bumble or Badoo, you know that for a very long time, communication on them also took place exclusively by text. This suited many people quite well, although this format was an extremely fertile ground for internet scammers.
The situation began to change during the Covid-19 pandemic, when millions of people around the world self-isolated and essentially remained closed off from society. Social networks and text chat in online dating services could not make up for the lack of communication, which is why people began to switch to random video chat even more actively. Having identified this trend, the developers of traditional dating services quickly caught on and implemented video calling functionality. Thus the ability to communicate via video chat has now appeared on almost all popular dating applications. This is a very important evolutionary step for web dating in the 21st century.
Is Video Chat Capable Of “Saving” A User From Attackers?
Not really.
Unfortunately, there is no 100% lawless form of protection against attackers on the internet. Even when you meet and communicate with a person via video, you cannot be completely sure that they are who they say they are and that they don’t have any malicious intentions towards you.
Of course, communicating via video is much safer than text chatting with people you don’t know, clicking on dubious links, or downloading files that are sent to you. But still, for greater security, you should follow some basic tips:
- First, use only trusted and reliable communication platforms. You can start with the video chat apps listed above — they have proven themselves well and have a large active community.
- Secondly, if the site requires registration, create a complex password and, if possible, use two-factor authentication so that attackers cannot access your account.
- Finally, make sure that you don’t have anything important on camera: credit cards, documents, personal notes, and the like. It’s better to put all this away so that your chat partners don’t see it and can’t use this information against you.
And, of course, if the other person persistently tries to obtain confidential or personal information from you, do not go along with this under any circumstances. It’s better to immediately end communication and not waste your time and nerves. Or better yet, report this incident to the site’s moderators so that the user is blocked as soon as possible and doesn’t harm other users.
In any case, video chat is a very convenient and useful format for modern dating, which you should definitely try. The main thing is to approach this issue seriously and carefully. And then meeting new people will give you only happy feelings.