{"id":2519,"date":"2026-07-21T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/?p=2519"},"modified":"2026-07-17T10:26:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:26:52","slug":"how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026","title":{"rendered":"How to Spot Fake Profiles and Bots on Dating Apps: A Gamer&#8217;s Field Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every gamer has run a perception check on something that looked slightly wrong \u2014 the too-still NPC, the chest that&#8217;s obviously a mimic. Good news: that instinct transfers directly to online dating. Fake profiles have tells, and once you know them, they&#8217;re about as subtle as a mimic with teeth showing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yesterday&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/online-dating-safety-for-gamers-2026\">safety guide<\/a> covered the landscape. Today we go deep on one threat: the fake profile \u2014 who makes them, what they want, and exactly how to catch them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why fake profiles exist at all<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nobody builds a fake profile for fun. Every fake is farming one of three resources:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Money.<\/strong> The romance scam pipeline \u2014 build a relationship, invent a crisis, or pitch an &#8220;investment.&#8221; Per the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/news-events\/data-visualizations\/data-spotlight\/2026\/04\/reported-losses-scams-social-media-eight-times-higher-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FTC&#8217;s April 2026 Data Spotlight<\/a>, scammers tailor their entire act to your profile \u2014 your interests are their script.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Attention metrics.<\/strong> Some platforms tolerate borderline-fake engagement accounts because they inflate activity numbers. (We think that&#8217;s gross. More on the incentive problem in tomorrow&#8217;s comparison post.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Data.<\/strong> Names, photos, phone numbers, and answers to questions that sound suspiciously like security questions. &#8220;What was your first pet&#8217;s name?&#8221; is not flirting. It&#8217;s a phishing form with a profile picture.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And this isn&#8217;t rare. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/internet\/2023\/02\/02\/the-experiences-of-u-s-online-daters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pew Research<\/a> found that 52% of people who&#8217;ve used a dating site or app believe they&#8217;ve encountered a scammer \u2014 and among people who used one in the past year, that jumps to 62%. The problem is growing, not shrinking, and AI tooling is making fakes cheaper to produce than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Profile-level tells: reading the sheet<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before you send a single message, the profile itself gives you data:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Too-perfect photos, too few of them.<\/strong> Two or three professional-grade shots and nothing candid is the classic fake loadout. Real people have one good photo and four where a friend caught them mid-sentence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Specifics that aren&#8217;t specific.<\/strong> &#8220;I love gaming!&#8221; \u2014 okay, what game? A real gamer&#8217;s profile bleeds specificity: the main, the grudge against a patch, the hill they&#8217;ll die on about a remake. Fakes stay vague because specificity is testable.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The AI-polished bio.<\/strong> Flawless grammar, zero personality, reads like a cover letter for the position of Girlfriend. Modern fakes are written by the same chatbots that write spam email, and they have the same tell: fluent nothing.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Timeline soup.<\/strong> Age, career, photos, and story that don&#8217;t quite add up. A 24-year-old surgeon deployed overseas who&#8217;s also a crypto mentor is not a person; it&#8217;s a mad-lib.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Behavior-level tells: the script always leaks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some fakes pass the profile check. None of them survive contact with an attentive human, because they&#8217;re all running variations of the same script:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>They rush off-platform.<\/strong> Usually within a day or two: &#8220;I never check this app, message me on [somewhere else].&#8221; Moderated space is hostile terrain for scammers, so step one is always extraction.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Intensity on fast-forward.<\/strong> You&#8217;re their soulmate by Thursday. Love-bombing compresses the trust timeline because time is the scammer&#8217;s biggest cost.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The camera is always broken.<\/strong> Endless reasons video can&#8217;t happen. One missed call is life. A structural inability to ever appear on camera is a tell.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The pivot to money.<\/strong> A sudden crisis, a customs fee, or \u2014 increasingly \u2014 friendly investment advice from someone who &#8220;just wants to help you get set up.&#8221; The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/news-events\/data-visualizations\/data-spotlight\/2026\/04\/reported-losses-scams-social-media-eight-times-higher-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FTC documents this exact pattern<\/a>: the crisis and the investment pitch are the two standard endings of every romance-scam script. The moment money enters the chat, the chat is over.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The gamer edition: fluency checks are your superpower<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s where you have an advantage the average dater doesn&#8217;t: <strong>gaming fluency cannot be faked in real time.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A scammer can copy &#8220;RPG fan&#8221; into a bio. What they can&#8217;t do is hold a conversation about it. Ask what they&#8217;re playing and what they&#8217;d change about it. Ask about their worst pub experience. Ask literally anything with a follow-up. A real gamer answers with opinions, grudges, and unprompted tangents. A fake answers like a search result \u2014 or changes the subject to how special you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is why shared-interest platforms are structurally harder to scam: the shared interest is a built-in interrogation surface. On <a href=\"https:\/\/lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-app.php\">a human-reviewed gamer dating app<\/a>, a fake has to survive both a human reviewer at the door <em>and<\/em> a community that speaks a language they don&#8217;t. Most don&#8217;t bother trying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What platforms owe you<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One more number from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/internet\/2023\/02\/02\/the-experiences-of-u-s-online-daters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pew<\/a>: online daters are twice as likely to say platforms do a bad job removing bots and fake accounts (40%) as a good job (20%). Users aren&#8217;t imagining the problem \u2014 they&#8217;re living in the gap between what moderation-by-algorithm promises and what it delivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You deserve a platform where profile review happens <em>before<\/em> the profile reaches you, not after you report it. That&#8217;s the standard we hold ourselves to at LFGdating \u2014 every profile, human-reviewed, before it enters the pool. Tomorrow&#8217;s post digs into why big platforms can&#8217;t match that model even when they want to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Until then: trust your perception check. If it looks like a mimic, don&#8217;t open it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fake profiles have tells \u2014 and gamers are unusually good at spotting them. The profile-level and behavior-level red flags, plus the fluency check no bot survives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,17],"tags":[807,806,60,805,404,801,802],"class_list":["post-2519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dating-advice","category-online-dating","tag-catfish-red-flags","tag-dating-app-bots","tag-dating-tips","tag-fake-dating-profiles","tag-gamer-dating","tag-online-dating-safety","tag-romance-scams"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to Spot Fake Dating Profiles: A Gamer&#039;s Guide<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Fake profiles have tells. Learn the profile-level and behavior-level red flags \u2014 plus the gamer fluency check no bot can pass.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bot or Not? Spotting Fake Dating Profiles in 2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The tells, the scripts, and the one interrogation technique gamers are uniquely equipped to run. Your perception check, trained.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gamer Dating Blog | LFGdating.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-21T12:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/featured-how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1520\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Casey (cw) Tebo (cw)\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Bot or Not? Spotting Fake Dating Profiles in 2026\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The tells, the scripts, and the one interrogation technique gamers are uniquely equipped to run. Your perception check, trained.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Casey (cw) Tebo (cw)\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Casey (cw) Tebo (cw)\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6bbc0e4c260f5d1e77411115a57bed80\"},\"headline\":\"How to Spot Fake Profiles and Bots on Dating Apps: A Gamer&#8217;s Field Guide\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-21T12:00:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026\"},\"wordCount\":833,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/featured-how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026.png\",\"keywords\":[\"catfish red flags\",\"dating app bots\",\"Dating Tips\",\"fake dating profiles\",\"Gamer Dating\",\"online dating safety\",\"romance scams\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Dating Advice\",\"Online Dating\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026\",\"name\":\"How to Spot Fake Dating Profiles: A Gamer's Guide\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/featured-how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-21T12:00:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6bbc0e4c260f5d1e77411115a57bed80\"},\"description\":\"Fake profiles have tells. Learn the profile-level and behavior-level red flags \u2014 plus the gamer fluency check no bot can pass.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/featured-how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/featured-how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026.png\",\"width\":1520,\"height\":800,\"caption\":\"A genuine holographic trading card next to a counterfeit print under a brass magnifying glass\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How to Spot Fake Profiles and Bots on Dating Apps: A Gamer&#8217;s Field Guide\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"Gamer Dating Blog | LFGdating.com\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6bbc0e4c260f5d1e77411115a57bed80\",\"name\":\"Casey (cw) Tebo (cw)\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/c84730383bb9df37b7729c42b55569263db613c717b30e700211d06f7297efd0?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/c84730383bb9df37b7729c42b55569263db613c717b30e700211d06f7297efd0?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/c84730383bb9df37b7729c42b55569263db613c717b30e700211d06f7297efd0?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Casey (cw) Tebo (cw)\"},\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lfgdating.com\\\/gamer-dating-blog\\\/author\\\/cowork-bot\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to Spot Fake Dating Profiles: A Gamer's Guide","description":"Fake profiles have tells. Learn the profile-level and behavior-level red flags \u2014 plus the gamer fluency check no bot can pass.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bot or Not? Spotting Fake Dating Profiles in 2026","og_description":"The tells, the scripts, and the one interrogation technique gamers are uniquely equipped to run. Your perception check, trained.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026","og_site_name":"Gamer Dating Blog | LFGdating.com","article_published_time":"2026-07-21T12:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1520,"height":800,"url":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/featured-how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Casey (cw) Tebo (cw)","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Bot or Not? Spotting Fake Dating Profiles in 2026","twitter_description":"The tells, the scripts, and the one interrogation technique gamers are uniquely equipped to run. Your perception check, trained.","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Casey (cw) Tebo (cw)"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026"},"author":{"name":"Casey (cw) Tebo (cw)","@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6bbc0e4c260f5d1e77411115a57bed80"},"headline":"How to Spot Fake Profiles and Bots on Dating Apps: A Gamer&#8217;s Field Guide","datePublished":"2026-07-21T12:00:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026"},"wordCount":833,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/featured-how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026.png","keywords":["catfish red flags","dating app bots","Dating Tips","fake dating profiles","Gamer Dating","online dating safety","romance scams"],"articleSection":["Dating Advice","Online Dating"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026","url":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026","name":"How to Spot Fake Dating Profiles: A Gamer's Guide","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/featured-how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026.png","datePublished":"2026-07-21T12:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6bbc0e4c260f5d1e77411115a57bed80"},"description":"Fake profiles have tells. Learn the profile-level and behavior-level red flags \u2014 plus the gamer fluency check no bot can pass.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/featured-how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/featured-how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026.png","width":1520,"height":800,"caption":"A genuine holographic trading card next to a counterfeit print under a brass magnifying glass"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/how-to-spot-fake-dating-profiles-2026#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How to Spot Fake Profiles and Bots on Dating Apps: A Gamer&#8217;s Field Guide"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/","name":"Gamer Dating Blog | LFGdating.com","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6bbc0e4c260f5d1e77411115a57bed80","name":"Casey (cw) Tebo (cw)","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c84730383bb9df37b7729c42b55569263db613c717b30e700211d06f7297efd0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c84730383bb9df37b7729c42b55569263db613c717b30e700211d06f7297efd0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c84730383bb9df37b7729c42b55569263db613c717b30e700211d06f7297efd0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Casey (cw) Tebo (cw)"},"url":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/author\/cowork-bot"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2520,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519\/revisions\/2520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfgdating.com\/gamer-dating-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}