Online Dating Scams
In general this is how it works. A male scammer contacts another man through an online dating service, posing as an attractive young woman, looking for a serious relationship. It all starts out as a harmless virtual friendship but soon enough the pretty young girl will ask the man for financial help. The excuses for this approach vary according to the scammer’s imagination but they tend to have a very strong emotional appeal to the victim. By the time the scammer starts to ask for money, the poor man is already convinced that she is looking for the same thing that he is: a serious long lasting relationship and is an easy pray to her charm.
Be on the lookout:
A scammer will try to get your money using extremely appealing arguments. Most of them are very smart and used to this kind of activity and they will easily find a way to your heart.
- Maybe they need money to help a sick or struggling family member.
- They need some money to start their own business and better their lives.
- They are desperate to meet you and they need financial help to get that flight ticket.
- They have suffered a tragedy, been robbed and they don’t have anyone else to turn to.
- And so on…
The excuses are as many as the scammer’s imagination can handle and you are their gullible prey!
Usually they will ask you to send them money using methods that are virtually impossible to trace, so be extra careful when your new virtual date suggests a wire transfer via Moneygram or Western Union. These methods are untraceable, irreversible and they don’t offer the sender any legal protection against fraud – a big no – no.
Does this mean you should quit online dating?
Of course not! There are lots of things you can do to protect yourself from fake online daters and many signs that can indicate you are being a victim of this type of scam. So, if your online date sends you a picture that looks out of a magazine cover, it probably is! Top models don’t usually hang around online dating sites.
Online Dating Red Flags:
- Your date does not give you a valid postal address and the phone number.
- Your date sends a lot of emails that seem generic and when you ask questions, the answers are always too evasive.. Maybe they are just sending mass emails to several other potential victims.
- They ask you for money.
Related posts:
These scams can cost you more than the price of a nice meal –
Woman falls victim to £10k net dating scam
People are being warned to be on the alert for dating scams after a woman was conned out of more than £10,000.
The victim, said to be ‘vulnerable’, was tricked by a man posing as a US Army captain in Afghanistan, who she met via an online dating agency.
The man, who built up the victim’s confidence through romantic emails, convinced her to transfer £10,000 via Western Union to an untraceable bank account in West Africa.
I believe that I was also scammed from the same person as you have written about being in the American Army serving as a Captain James Harris, but I am lucky enough to have a friend who managed to get me to stop sending money to this person. I did lose some money but near enough as the person you have wrote about. I have contacted the police in my area and they have told me to carry on talking to this person but I am finding it very hard as they are still asking for the funds to be sent to them so they can come back to England and be with me. I also have run up a mobile phone bill that I am having to pay off over the next couple of months. I would like everybody that goes on to dating web sites to be made aware of what can happen to you. You are vulnerable, weak and they prey on those features. I am a little wiser from my experience and wish the person who lost all that money all the best take care. from Pat Poor
from tony…..I found this girl on a dating site,,we have actally spoken 3 times on the phone,,she is an afghan..both her parents were killed in the war..she is so interested in meeting me in australia..seems all well..buit im suspicious when she mentioined..moneygram/western union
the best i can actually do is to tell her she has to pay for planeticket..on the web..and ill see her in sydney when she arrives..this is the only way i cannot get ripped off by her..
WHAT DO YOU THINK???GIVE ME ADVICE–ANYONE?..eitherway im not sending my half as she has requested….tony..her reply is below..what do you think?
Hello My dear,
Good day.how are you doing at the moment?I have contacted an agent that will take care of my apartment while i travel to meet you.Yes,i am not going to sale it now so that anytime we visit Rome,we can have a place to stay.I really want to come to meet you,and as you have said,the best thing we should do is to bring half of the flight fee each.Therefore,i will want you to send me half of the money so that i will complete it from my savings and book my ticket to Sydney.I am very glad that we are going to be together soon.You can send me the money through money gram or western union with my infomation below
Jenifer Abass
56 Via Pietro Maffi
Roma,Italy
Also try to send me the receipt which you use in sending the money so that i can confirm it and buy my ticket.I missed you so much and really happy that we are going to meet soon..Also please tell me the airport i should arrive in Sydney.take good care of yourself and i hope to read soon from you.
yours love,
Jenifer
You are quite right, do not send the money. You won’t see it or her, although she is probably a he. It has been estimated that 50% of the transactions going through Western Union are to fraudsters.
Hi there, i can not express how you must not send any MONEY TO THIS PERSON as somebody stated they may be a Man and not a lady using it loosely ,if you do you will not see them at all if they live in Italy and can manage to rent there apartment out they must be able to get the funds to buy the plane ticket and get to Sydney ,
Please take care and be very careful Pat
HEY MAN! I NEED A PIZZA FOR THE SECOND HALF. and if your going to send her the money then you might as well send me 20 dollars american i need for my pizza. im talking to jennifer right now and she is still up to no good. i did my homework on her. even though we talked on the phone as well it doesnt. whats 50 bucks when your making 500 or 1000 (potentially). the war thing and dead parents were a dead giveaway but she does have a sexy italia voice on the phone doesnt she? thats the hook, the phone calls. 56 via pietro maffi looks like its just an intersection, no one listed at that address.
I was also scammed by someone who claimed to be a Lieutenant Colonel in the US army deployed in Afghanistan. It would appear he is a Nigerian conman. I lost £20,000 which I had to borrow to help him out of his ‘predicament’. I know of other women conned by the same person who have lost sums from £2,000 to £60,000. The police have been informed but are not the slightest bit interested and have little sympathy. The site was also very unhelpful. It seems like internet crime is not considered to be proper crime despite the devastating effects it has on the lives of those affected.
Hi I believe now I was being scammed by a Colonel Patrick Wadsworth in Afganistan, he was msn me all the time. And telling me from the word go how madly he had fallen in love with me. He terrified me. Told me he had an adopted son. etc. And was 3 weeks to retirement. I had begun writing with him on my private email address and then i blocked him. And i found later the dating site blocked him. Thats why i think he is a scammer, very professional. I was worried for him. But also I did not feel good and did not eat or sleep for a week literally i was terrified by the ardour of his emotions and his english and turn of phrase perfect.
Hi Elizabeth
Thanks for sending this message i hope you are feeling better please don’t lose any sleep over these people ,they are not worth it lets hope with us keeping every body informed something may get done about the scammers ,did he ask for any money from you as you haven’t mentioned anything about that ,yes it is a mystery that the English is so good ,as i have been told that they don’t understand our grammar very well and that the spelling can be very bad but it isn’t.
All I can say to you is just be more aware of who you meet and talk to just don’t go onto MSN when they ask you to move web sites
Hi there, just wanted to add I also had a scammer going by the name of Colonel Joe Wadsworth supposedly in Iraq and due to retire. This guy has used a number of christian names as well as other names. The poetry and love stuff he sent was unbelievable, (easily obtained from the net). I got suspicious right off, and checked all the info he gave, which of course didn’t check out. When I realised I could trace the IP address is was from Ghana. This I reported to the American Embassy who gave me a link to the net police. It is ic3.gov. Any suspicious stuff can be reported to them and hopefully in time they will all get caught. I say they as there is a ring of them . It’s an industry !!Anyone reading this I hope it saves you from any involvement in monetary transactions. Never send any.
Hi I would just like to add that I am sure I have just been conned out of £400:00 pounds by ‘Col. Joe Wadsworth’ stationed in Iraq and due to retire in June, I met him via Match Affinity in December and being recently widowed I was gullible and must admit was drawn in by the lovely emails and the poetry as I was pretty low at the time, its taken 4 months before he asked for any money and I was stupid enough to send an advance of £400:00 before warning bells sounded and my daughters pointed out it was probably a scam…but he was very plausible and he sent photos of himself in uniform with the American flag plus he did a slide show that showed him inspecting troops and presenting certificates. He said that his wife had died of a brain tumour and he had a 17 year old son who was at colledge and wanted to be a doctor…he had a house in London and when he retired he wanted to own a farm, and I must admit looking back over his emails now I can see the discrepencies and also when chatting on MSM sometimes he would say ‘I told you that’ but I have a good memory and started to question some of his statements and then he would say it was all to do with security issues so I think that is when he started to drop hints for money before asking outright that he needed the money for diplomatic security tags on his luggage before he could fly to be with me. As a professional woman and having run a business I can not believe that I was so stupid as to be taken in by him.
I believe this to be the same person I have been talking to but with the name James Wadsworth and yes I have sent money, but found all these things out too late. I think they will get caught as I think they are getting to cocky and making mistakes. And I am sorry for saying this but I hope they all rot in hell.
Hi Pat
In response to your comments to Elizabeth, I understand what you are saying but it is not easy to forget what has happened and not lose any sleep. I am still having nightmares about how I was taken in by these people and how it has devastated the life of myself and my family, not only financially but emotionally and psychologically. I believe they work in groups and the initial contacts are extremely well educated and speak perfect English. As the grooming takes effect, I believe other conmen take over who are being trained to perfect their technique so that they too will be fully fledged conmen. In my case, when I look back, I can identify the different people from the emails and texts. The police have no interest in catching these people and even enhace your feeling of low esteem for having been so stupid as to fall for their pathetic stories. If you were able to look at the scenario, detached from the emotional involvement, then it would be clear what was happening but these people are so clever. They keep you awake by MSN all the time and then texting all day and night. The texts started from around 6.30am, then msn and texts in the early hours. I think this was a crafty way to affect your judgement due to lack of sleep but you are hooked on receiving the next communication. You are also scared for their safety, listening to every news report for more war casualties whilst all the time it is a big game for them. They tell embellished stories of the atrocities they have encountered which is sickening when you realise it is all false and yet other genuine soldiers are having to cope with these events.
I can no longer trust anybody and won’t let anyone close to me. I will never forget what he and his associates did to me and those empty words which echo constantly..’I will never hurt you’ and when I was concerned about the money I was borrowing..’There is no debt..’ because he was going to repay it when he retired in a few weeks time. I had enough information for the police to catch him but they will not work outside of their own county let alone in another country. I can see the logic if this was an isolated incident but I believe this con is huge and we are just the tip of the iceberg. One of the telephone numbers I was given by my conman is now being used by another conman who calls himself ‘Captain George’. I even contacted the police in the US where I was asked to send money to a person who exists and an address which exists. I have had no response from the police there either. This also adds to the trauma because nobody seems to care or take the situation seriously.
Yes I was also “hit” on by THREE different so called serving American Officers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The names used were Davinson Craig, Sgnt Eric Hughes and Lt Jeffrey Miller, although I believe they were all the same person. I met them (him) through Uniform Dating a reptutable site.
The scams varied from sending money for phone cards, to providing personal and bank details for funds to be credited from them to you haha. To acutally buying a very expensive mobile phone and jewellery (a gold chain to keep him safe) urgh! and sent it to an address in Nigeria. How daft do these scum think we are. I severed all contact immediately the requests started and will not be using internet dating again as it is a portal for criminals to prey on innocent people.
Something has to be done about these people as it is getting our of hand them still taking money from the vunrable and guilliable how can they still get away with it is there nowbody that can make sure the scammers are taken of the website’s they go onto ,
All i can say to anybody on Dating Site’s please please be careful DO NOT SEND ANY MONEY TO THEM
Scammers come thick and fast on Date the UK website !!! In recent months I have actually had 5 coming on to me. One called himself Jorge Harrison, such a charmer. I fell for it, well almost,he asked for money so he could pay for a hotel in Ghana as he had lost his luggage in transit and his credit cards were in the case!!! He said he needed to conclude his business there then he would be straight home. (Oh and he also said he was born in venice with a 15 year old son.) It turned out he wanted me to open a bank account so he could transfer the money into because all of his were now frozen because of his credit card loss. Luckily I caught on to what he was doing ‘money laundering’ !!!! He sent beautiful emails tho !!!!!!
Guy No: 2….. well he called himself Kelvin Nehls and low and behold he was born in Venice and had a 13 year old son. But guess what, the emails he sent were identical to the ones I received from the 1st guy but different photos. So I blocked him………… wasn’t going down that road again !!!
Guy No: 3…..he said he was German, and designed oil riggs. He was about to go to New York to try and win a huge contract worth millions of dollars !!! So off he went, and wanted to keep me informed of the meetings etc… so , as I expected… he won the contract, But…. he needed me to send some money over so he could pay a lawyer for the paperwork and contracts!!!!! You got it….he never got a penny out of me and he was blocked !!!!
Guy No: 4 he was American, he did some kind of work on riggs, he was going to Nigeria to work, he needed to find some workmen that could help him do the job….. he used all his money finding these men, so had very little to live off. Low and behold the machine broke, and he needed me so send him some money so he could have it fixed!!!! Once again, I sent no money and he was blocked.
Guy No: 5 he said he was in the American army, going by the name of Private Scotty, seemed very nice, but fell madly in love with me and couldn’t wait to get leave to come and see me. He asked me to apply for a months leave for him, when I asked if it would cost me anything, he said yes but further down the line but he would pay me back straight away. I said I had no spare money to do that so he said thats ok, he would find a way to sort it out. The next day he said he had something to tell me!!! He was on probation, and there was going to be a big meeting with his superiors about him apparrantly he had shot a colleague in the leg, by accident, nothing too major!!! Anyway the outcome of that was, he was to lose his food, etc and access to his laptop. But he would try to find a way to stay in touch. Next day he had been to see his superiors, and guess what??? There was to be another meeting , the outcome of that one was, he could have his food back and his lap top, but his salary was blocked and also his health care. Well, he would be needing money off me to survive the following month, but he would pay me back!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well I think you know what my reaction to that was don’t you……. GET LOST MATEY….
Can you believe these men!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This letter may sound long winded, but if it helps anyone else to feel better, then its worth it……….. I think I could right a book about my experiences……Take care everyone.