There are many things that keep people occupied during Valentine season: looking for a date, spreading the love, and you know, victimizing people. That’s right, love isn’t the only thing that’s in the air during the day we’ve dedicated to passion and affection. According to online fraud fighting company iovation, fraud attempts directed at dating websites increased by 150 percent in 2011, amounting to about 3.8 percent of all transaction processed in online dating sites.

“Cybercriminals are constantly looking for that common interest to capitalize on and in this case it’s love,” said Molly O’Hearn, Vice President of Operations at iovation. “As we head into Valentine’s Day, people should be wary of any sort of interaction that seems a little off. Just like in the face-to-face world, if something seems too good to be true it probably is.”

iovation’s premiere dating site fraud finding solution, ReputationManager 360, has identified over 60 million fraud attempts, as well as the computers, mobile phones and tablets used to commit fraud. iovation boasts that they’ve prevented 7 billion fraud transactions for companies and industries like financial services, retail, logistics, travel, dating, social networking and gaming/gambling.

“While a majority of people on dating sites are looking for that perfect someone, there are others who prey on those looking for love,” said Mark Brooks, advisor to some of the world’s top dating and social networking sites.

“But those bad actors can cause millions of dollars in lost revenue and damaged reputation to online dating sites, not to mention a loss of innocence for its users. It is imperative to harness the latest technology from companies like iovation to ensure that damage never reaches a site and its customers.”

These abuses include:

• Credit Card Fraud – Customer uses a fake or stolen credit card to create multiple accounts to scam users.

• Spamming – User is caught sending unsolicited bulk messages via emails, postings, instant messages, etc. to promote other products, websites or companies.

• Scams and Solicitations – User takes advantage of the community to promote nonexistent services and products, or to solicit services from legitimate members.

• Identity Mining – User makes any attempt to illegitimately acquire personal information from other users through means of phishing, keystroke logging, creating fake business websites, and other methods.

• Profile Misrepresentation – User posts inaccurate information in profile and/or uses bogus profile photos.

• Harassment / Bullying – User abuses or harasses another customer with undesirable language, threats, or unwanted advances.

• Chat Abuse – User is caught harassing other users through community chat.

iovation has a unique service that allows its clients to share fraud intelligence with each other and with businesses in other industries, allowing them to proactively identify devices that are associated with abuse before the bad actors can strike.

Buy a sex toy this year

On the lighter side of love, we also find some interesting trends for Valentine’s Day gifting. Topping the chart are sex toys whose searches increased by 194 percent compared to the same season last year. Lingerie and romantic-evening wear searches increased by 36 percent as well from Q3 to Q4 2011.

But that’s not all. There are unloving thoughts in some of American consumers as well. How? Five percent of the survey’s respondent said they can give up their spouse for the ability to telecommute to work. They are also willing to daily showers (12%), chocolate (29%) and salary increases (17%).