Dating Scams
Looking for Love in All the Online Places May Land You a Scam
Instead of a Love!
If you are active on online dating websites, or via classifieds, chat rooms
and forums, beware. Some reports indicate that as much as 30% of the
personalities are scams. That beautiful woman (or handsome guy) may be in love
with your wallet or purse, not you! Here are some of the typical scams:
- Hard core scammers set out to con you into sending them money;
- fake profiles intended to redirect you to another website (porn,
gambling or even another dating website); or
- real people looking to date... but they are not who they claim to be!
Even the biggest and oldest dating websites, such as Match.com, eHarmoney,
AOL, etc., are not immune to scammers. Dating has changed since the advent of
the internet and you have to be knowledgeable and have you guard up to find true
love, instead of a real scam!
Here are visitor-submitted reports of dating scams. And here are some
key points to remember about the scams.
Also see this page on Russian
dating scams.
Actual scam emails received:
- Miss Nafisatu
John Apollo
- Hannah Daniel
- Michelle Serges
What can you do to avoid being scammed on dating websites
Scammers are
present everywhere on the dating websites. Even if you use established dating
websites, like Match.com, eHarmony, etc., and even the women say they live in
your own country, you may be scammed. Before you invest your emotions into a
long distance relationship, compare what they say against common sense.
Someone who claims to be in love without, sight unseen, never having met you in
person, is mostly a scammer or simply unbalanced. Apply the same common sense
rules of safe dating online as you would in person.
- Let friends or relatives know where you are going and when you expect to
return when you meet someone from a dating website.
- Always meet in a public place.
- Never send money to someone you met online.
- Especially, never, ever send money via Western Union.
Miscellaneous dating scam reports from consumers / victims:
Isingles, Olusesan Ashaye, Received April 9, 2008:
I have been chatting to a man who contacted me from
the website
www.isingles. I believed he was an american living in England. He then
said he was away on business in West Africa. We have been chatting for
several weeks and he was very convincing. He was a widow with no family and
just one son - Nelson. However, when he said he was returning to the UK he
said he had run out of cash and could I send him some, asking initially for
£500 and when I said no asked how much could I send. I led him to believe
that I would send £50 and these are the details that he gave me:
Western Union Money Transfer
Agent name - Olusesan Ashaye
City - Ikorodu
State - Lagos
Country - Nigeria
Zipcode - 23401
Text question - best colour
Answer - blue
His email address is
littleman4075@yahoo.com
mayordavies, Received March 31, 2008:
this is a dating scammer which his name is
mayordavies
mayor01012005@yahoo.com i met him of 18-60s dating over 3 months ago he
has spoken with me as he was supposed to american but he is nigerian he also
knows my home address and worried in case something happens he emails me
every day and chats on yahoo messenger i last spoke to him yesterday and got
quite angry demanding money by western union i have not sent any but with
him knowing where i live im concerned thank you i would say i have heard in
the background there is a big ring of them working together please do
something for me im worried
HornyMatches.com, Received March 31, 2008:
Recently i joined a dating site by the name of
HornyMatches.com, it cost me in total 85 euro to join and there is a
fixed fee of 35 euro a month . I have recently discovered that many of the
profiles with pictures on them are taken from other sites on the net and not
just dating sites. Also when i tried to communicate with someone i always
got a one line answer, almost as if it was automated. This aroused my
suspicions and i investigated the matter and found numerous complaints of
hard done by consumers who were dooped by this scam, People were saying that
they never met anyone and that there was always some excuse,one person even
said that he had a lot of difficulty cancelling his account, so to avoid
this problem i changed my credit card. Now, i just want to highlight this in
the hope something can be done about it, the company is based in Belgium,
well thats what they advertise, and i believe they have a team of people who
are pretending to be the person that is in the profile, responding to emails
from unsuspecting customers, keeping them on a string as to extract money
from them, It even says that when you cancell the account the membership
will terminate immediately even if you have paid until a certain time that
has yet to expire.I found this very strange and can think of no logical
reason as to why they do this. I believe this is quite a vicious scam as
they are stealing from people who are looking for a partner. Anyways, Please
let me know if you are familiar with this site and what can be done about
it. Thanks.
becky thomas, Received March 28, 2008:
this to do with dating scamby becky thomas and a
old lady saying shec is her grandmoter the grand mother is in nigera and
becky is suposto be in uk there using the immigrationg to do this ghe gets a
boyfriend than say she coming to meet him ihan later says she stuck at
immergratins and needa money to get out thats hosw she cought me i ihought
ise was real yhere in thre uk because she had a guy saying he wae from
imergrations when i called him and when he called me he told me he was
imergrations wnd kneeded six hundred dollars to let her cross the border
her grand mother goes by the name on lara bush or lara bush 3 on the
internet they scamed me for 18hundred dollars becky gos by owo omo show
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