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Standing out on dating apps can be tough, leaving many looking for an angle. If you consider your credit score and financial prowess one of your most attractive qualities, you might wonder if adding your score to your profile could be a good hook. But should you share this kind of personal information right in your profile?
Weighing the benefits with the risks of sharing personal information is part of online dating, but it can be especially crucial when financial details are involved. Consider the following before making your move.
Should I Include My Credit Score in My Dating Profile?
When you have a very good or excellent credit score, you might feel it's a valuable trait worth sharing. But including it in a public dating profile could set you up for danger.
Detailing too much personal financial information online can expose you to possible scammers. Similarly, discussing money too early in the dating process could create an uncomfortable dynamic. It may even attract someone with less-than-honorable financial intentions.
How to Protect Your Financial Information When Using Dating Apps
While a credit score alone doesn't give away too much information, other financial and personal information could. And revealing a higher credit score could also flag you as a target to thieves.
When you're making a dating profile or talking to a prospective date, remember to use internet safety measures, such as:
- Avoid discussing any financial details that could put your accounts in jeopardy, such as where you bank or if you keep cash in your home.
- While you're still getting to know someone, consider keeping your home address and personal cellphone number private. Limiting your contact to a dating app chat function can help protect your private information.
- Similarly, in the early days of dating, protect information that reveals parts of your personal identity, such as your full birthdate, where you were born and perhaps even your own last name as identity thieves may utilize all of these items to impersonate you.
- Don't click on links that a potential match sends you. Scammers can use these types of phishing links to gather valuable information from you.
- Never send money to a match, even if they say they need help. Romance scams over dating websites are one of the fastest-growing types of online scams.
How to Talk About Money With a Partner
Whether you lead with personal information like your credit score or give it a few dates before diving in, before too long in your relationship you'll probably have questions about your date's finances too.
When you feel it's time to talk finances with a romantic partner, there are some specific topics you may want to broach. Think of questions that may be important to you, like:
- Do you pay your credit card balance every month?
- How are you saving for retirement?
- Are you a saver or a spender?
- What do you plan to spend on your rent or mortgage in the future?
- What kinds of things do you like to spend more money on? What kinds of things do you like to spend less on?
- Do you see yourself combining finances with a long-term partner or keeping your money separate?
- Do you want to have children and will you be OK with the associated costs?
Talking about money is best done sooner than later. This is especially true before you combine any finances or living situations, which could affect your own credit score and financial health.
Must Love Credit
While putting your credit score in your dating profile is a personal decision, talking about views on personal finance early in a relationship is always a good idea. While these topics might be a little heavy for a first date, they're important to ask as things become more serious.
But caution is always advisable when getting to know someone. That's why it's important to protect your personal information online. Do your best to prevent access to things that could hurt your finances or lead to harassment.
One way to do so is to clean up your online presence. Though you may be ready to "put yourself out there," that doesn't mean your whole identity. Nor does it mean your home address or personal email address needs to be scattered across people finder sites. As you get into the dating scene, consider locking down your personal social media, and getting your information removed from people finder sites.
It can be tedious to comb through pages of search results and contact each site to request removal, though. Instead, run Experian's personal privacy scan to inventory where your information is online and get it removed with just a few steps. You can run your initial scan for free.