Being a forum administrator and moderator on a free internet dating site, I felt it was necessary to go over what to watch out for when it comes to romance rip off nightmares.
Unfortunately, there are large groups of people that have nothing better to do with their time than harass and prey on innocent and emotionally vulnerable women AND men. Don't think it's only geared towards women, because it's not. Men get hit up all the time too.
Internet dating is very popular and holds thousands and millions of people for would be scammers to prey on. It's a thief's idea of heaven, with so many opportunities and odds are someone will go for their bait.
The majority of romance dating scams is from West African counties such as Nigeria and Ghana, but is in no way limited to those countries.
To begin with, scammers will always post a very attractive photo (not of themselves of course), along with a fake and too good to be true profile.
It's amazing how much time they actually spend in trying to create a real and interesting profile.
The second thing to look out for is how they write. Their English is usually very bad and although they write in English, the sentences are broken and just don't seem to make much sense.
Many people assume that it's because the individual does not have a good education, so be sure to look out for that and be wary of anyone who cannot complete a full sentence that is grammatically incorrect.
You will receive a mass email from them. You know them, the kind of message that doesn't make you feel very special at all.
It's obvious that it's intended for anyone and was not at all meant specifically for you. For example "Hi, loved your profile and you seem like such a nice person, would love to get to know you". It can be meant for anyone and obviously, they did not take the time to read your profile either.
If you do respond to this type of message, the original message will also include an email Yahoo or Hotmail address, which they would prefer you to use to correspond with them.
Scammers are always trying to lead you away from the dating site you are on. They also always try to get you to give them your personal email address, cell phone number, instant messenger ID, and basically anything that they can get their hands on to one day soon use against you.
Eventually, the will give you their long sob story of how hard and difficult their life is and how they would so much appreciate any help you can give them. They do this of course after a period of time and gradually after they have built up sufficient trust with you.
Unfortunately, many people are lured into these false stories and actually send money to them. Be warned and keep it simple. If anyone ever asks you for money on an internet dating site, then it's simply time to say goodbye.
If this does happen to you or you are suspicious of anyone, report it to the internet dating service you are on immediately. There is only one way to get rid of scammers, and that's one scammer at a time. Be smart and stay safe.
Author Resource:-
This article was written by Shawn Wilson, a member of the customer support team at Datepad, where internet dating is always free. Datepad has a massive directory of informative dating articles along with a great list of dating site reviews on their dating blog.
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