This is a question that crops up very frequently, and I would start from the standpoint that it has never been easy to find success, because the density of population in country areas doesn’t lend itself to providing lots of choice in terms of potential partner—that applies particularly to lesser populated areas such as Northern Scotland and Mid or North Wales.
In recent times however, further issues have reared their head, and that is the rapidly growing crime rate associated with online dating sites and smartphone dating apps, which is one of the fastest growing of all crimes in the U.K.—in particular, crimes relating to fraud and scamming that appear to be out of control at the present time. According to an article by GB Group PLC, more than 8 million people in the U.K. “Have used fake, fraudulent or someone else’s identity in person or online to gain access to goods, services or credit.”
Country dwellers seem to have latched onto these dangers more quickly than most, perhaps because living in more isolated locations might heighten your sense of danger and self preservation, or maybe being professionals from higher socio-economic groupings than the average in the U.K. has created an awareness and the need to protect themselves and their assets. Whatever the reason, they seem to be more aware of the dangers and the need to exercise caution.
Country Partners: How Do We Protect Our Dating Members?
At Country Partners we have all sorts of safeguards and procedures in place to try to ensure that our members do not fall victim to scamming activity or fraud, and we aren’t aware of anyone ever having problems of this nature whilst being a member—a record we are immensely proud of.
The fact that all our members have to join and pay a substantial fee to become part of Country Partners, obviously goes an exceptionally long way to keeping people safe. We also interview everyone personally either in their own home or at our office, although this is done by Teams or Zoom for our more inexpensive memberships. After their interview, our matchmaking team gets to know our client base very thoroughly and is responsible for each and every match we provide. This puts us at the leading edge for keeping clients safe, and we also carefully vet them, which includes the following:
- Their residency in terms of where they live and who with.
- Whether or not they have ever been involved in crime in the past, with a particular emphasis on fraud and money crime.
- We also check out our members and potential members for solvency and ensure that they are not joining for the wrong reasons. So, we check for CCJs, bankruptcy orders, and also bank accounts being forcibly closed.
This goes a significant way to protecting our members and keeping the wrong types well away from a Country Partners membership, ensuring that the likelihood of fraud is minimised.
Online Dating Fraud: What Is the Recent Research Behind It?
Banks and other financial institutions are also doing more to highlight the problem, and on the 16th of December 2024, Lloyds Bank issued a press release on Marissa Wallace, who was relieved of £60,000 in 2022 in a dating app scam and is still suffering from the trauma of it today.
The scammer involved firstly gained Marisha’s trust before cheating her out of tens of thousands, leaving her feeling angry but also ashamed that she had allowed it to happen. New research from Lloyds reports that it is commonplace to have these feelings and be profoundly affected by these occurrences, reporting that people felt the following:
Annoyance 27%
Anger 26%
Powerless 24%
Sadly, the feelings can continue to be felt for years after the incident, and it was reported that a colossal 78% of victims are not accessing the support that is provided to help speed up their emotional recovery. Liz Ziegler, Fraud Prevention Director, says “The impact fraud can have on victims, even when no money is lost, should not be underestimated. We spend tens of millions of pounds on fraud defences to prevent our customers from becoming a victim and provide the tools needed so that people can recognise the signs of fraud and better protect themselves.”
Marisha Wallace explained the emotional journey she went through to try to stage a recovery. Said Marissa, “At first, I was just angry, pleading for answers from the guy I thought I trusted. I was in shock as I thought this stuff doesn’t happen to smart, successful people like myself.”
“But, I was wrong. I was so ashamed when I finally confessed to my family—I just kept imagining the house I wanted to buy for my mother.” Marisha has turned to Victim Support to help her through the trauma involved and she credits them for the help that they have provided. She added that “I feel mentally stronger, but I just don’t want anyone to go through what I went through.” Marisha is a concerned and wonderfully caring woman.
Personal Matchmaking: A Safer Alternative to Online Dating
So, the problems of a lack of success for country dwellers online or through the use of smartphone dating apps is two-fold: Firstly, the isolation and lower population density in rural areas doesn’t lend itself to helping country people find success or an acceptable level of potential future partners in terms of quality, and secondly, increasing crime levels and the ever-growing threat of fraud. Many people do not want to run the risk of becoming a victim, and becoming another crime statistic, and that is why the safer waters of personal matchmaking have begun to gain popularity.
Such agencies include ourselves here at Country Partners. Other reputable matchmaking services include The County Register, who are London-based, but cover the whole country, as well as rural areas; RSVP Dating, which is another matchmaking and singles events company that has traditionally covered the East of England region from their office in Oakham in Rutland, although they have recently moved to Warwickshire; and Attractive Partners, also based in Alcester, Warwickshire, have also traditionally provided a service to country people.
We spoke to Tracey Cater, Memberships Manager at Country Partners. Tracey has worked in the industry since 2006, and during that time has advised more than 6,000 people on finding love and a new relationship. Says Tracey: “This has been a wonderful year for personal matchmaking and particularly for Country Partners. The problems with trying to find partners of quality online or via smartphone apps are there for all to see, and the growing crime rate is not anything that discerning people can continue to ignore.”
Tracey continues: “I have made it my crusade in 2024 to keep people safe and secure when they are dating and personally, I feel that the risks associated with online sites and dating apps are just too great to be ignored. People now need to take action to protect themselves and joining a personal matchmaking company has to be the right way to go for most people. The costs of joining are higher than joining a dating app or online site, because of the costs of working one on one with your own matchmaker, and that’s not anything we can reduce. But if you consider the quality of our database and the fact that all have been personally interviewed and carefully vetted to verify each member as 100% genuine, that is worth its weight in gold.”
“As far as I am aware, we have never had any instances of fraud or inaccurate profiles at Country Partners, and never have we had anyone feeling threatened or vulnerable on a date, which is a brilliant record and one that I am extremely proud of. Whatever it takes to keep our members safe, then I am confident we will continue to offer the thoroughness and detailed approach necessary to ensure safety and will never compromise or cut corners on something so critically important.”
Her final word is as follows: “2024 has been a remarkably successful one for the agency, we have again been nominated to be Dating Agency of the Year for what we have achieved, and my feeling is that this time we will go one better than the Runner Up Award that we received in 2023 and will take the trophy this time. As the job the Country Partners team do is nothing short of remarkable.”
Would you like more information on joining Country Partners and dating safely? If so, we would be delighted to help and without obligation too. If you would like to know what a typical member is like, how our matchmaking service works, what constitutes a great match, and why we have been so successful as a company, then we would love to help. Our phones are answered in the UK by our friendly membership advisers, from 9am until 9pm almost every day. This year, we will just close on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, as we try to be available at times our potential clients need us. So, please feel free to ring us on 0800 644 4123 at our expense, and we will get you talking to someone who can help. Alternatively, fill out our contact form, and a member of our dating team will be in touch as soon as possible. We’d love to hear from you.