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Online Dating Scams: What to Look for and How to Protect Yourself
- 7-18-2007
- Categorized in: Most Commented, Various Scams
If you are looking for love online, you may well find it. Every day, more and more people are joining the search, and thousands can now testify to happy, lasting relationships that have formed as a result. Sadly, thousands more have fallen victim to online dating scams.
Here are secrets to spotting these scams, as well as specific ways you can protect yourself.
Online dating scams take a variety of forms, but they have one thing in common: money. If you have met a genuine person in your search for online romance, it should be a long time before the subject of money comes up.
But people who may be working a scam will try to raise the issue as soon as possible. They may take a few weeks to try and seduce you, often through email and chat, but they can afford to invest only so much time in any one possible target.
So, if the subject of money comes up relatively quickly with a prospective partner, you should be wary.
The subject of money can take many forms. Some people may will ask you straight out for cash donations (often to help them deal with supposed emergencies) but others will be more subtle.
Often the money you stand to lose will take the form of payments to what seems like a third party, as in telephone online dating scams. Telephone dating scams often involve the prospective partner asking you to call him or her on a particular number, which is secretly charging you several dollars per minute. These scams can cause you to run up huge phone bills, but because you do not see your bill immediately you may not realize what is going on until you are already in serious trouble.
One of the most common scams is a variation on the 'Nigerian' scam, which you may well have encountered before in email. In this online dating scam, the person whom you have an interest in, who often claims to be living in an African country, will tell you that he or she has received some money in the form of money orders that can not be cashed there. The person will then ask you to cash the money orders in your bank and wire the money. The money orders will be forgeries and you may even find yourself charged by your bank for submitting them; however, they can take several weeks to process, so many people fall for these online dating scams and wire the money before they find out what is truly going on.
If the person you have met online lives far away, one of the most tempting ways to spend money is on travel, to enable them to visit you. Many online dating scams take advantage of this with set-ups that enable this prospective partner to pocket the money.
You can avoid these online dating scams by never sending cash and never allowing the other person to determine exactly what travel arrangements or agencies will be used.
While you should not allow these scams to put you off when looking for love online, it is important to be aware of them. Remember that any genuine person you meet will know about these scams, too. If they care about you, they will respect your need to be careful.
Has anyone heard of Williams alves, born in Port Elizabeth South africia, living in Tampa Florida and working as artitech in Dublin Ireland. Hr is divorced with 18 year old son names Sean. He does have South african accent and supposedly attended Rhode Island School of design. I met him on a dating web site and after a few days he started asking me for money to help pay his bills then money for a plane ticket to meet me back in the states. Now he needs $1855.00 because he was placed in detention in dublin after a dispute over union wages. He wants to send me $190,000.00 and sent him the 1855.00 and keep the rest until he comes back because he cannot access his money in ireland the amount he was paid for his job there. Sounds like a scam to me. Does anyone know him or heard of this happening. The only thing i can verify is his email address. I had him send mr apicture he snapped from his cellphone and it looked like the picture on his email address only older Please help.
My soon to be ex-wife has been talking to a Chris Scott. Suposedly a soccer agent who is currently in Nigeria. The typical story, widowed, has a daughter in Scotland, out of the country because of his job, they have fallen in love with each other, set to meet in about 2 weeks, etc. Has anyone out there come across this guy?
I have been part of this same scam. I am embarrassed and mortified that I fell for this. I lost $1500.00 dollars.
Peter Fiinney said his parents died in a car accident when he was 6 yeqrs old, he was raised in the Netherlands by his grandmother. He said he is getting a divorce and waiting for his wife to move out because she had an affair with his best friend and the son he thought he had was the son of his best friend and was not his. He had been lied to all this time from his ex wife. He claims he is a civil engineer and is on Linkdin if you look him up. You cannot get any informtion or telephone for him on that site and I also tried looking up finnpower which apparently is his company. I met him on Match.com. Scary He said he was livinng in West Grove, PA and leaving to go to Malaysia for work. Then he said he could not find what he needed in Malyasia so he was headed to the UK. We talked everday and he sent me pictures. Just this past Saturday he said he was robbed by a gang of Jamacans and they took all of his cash, credit cards, pass port and belongings. He said he was stabbed. He said he needed money for toilettries, food, and clothes. So of course like an idiot I offered to help, he told me to send my money to (Wester Union) to a Dawn Moshel in Grand Rapids, then she (who was supposedly his attorney from Florida who was visting family in Minnestoa) was going to get his money to a Liberty reserve account in the UK so he can get the monies and work with the US Embassy to get passport and other information. He also said his attorneys drivers license just exprired so if I were going to send money it had to be sent cash with a text Question and Answer for the recipient to receive because the recipient would not have ID. Im such an idiot nd honestly I was doubting myself the whole time. I felt uncomfortable and did it anyway. When asked for his attorneys number he said he could not give it to me for Privacy reasons. He would not give me his address in West Grove, PA or His address in Florida. Said he lives in Spring Hill, can't find anything there on him. Did a reverse number search and no information there. He is a true blue professional scam artisty. He is a liar. He is a Fraud
Need some advise pease.
This guy has insisted I come to Malaysia to meet him and he will prove everything he has said is true. Even to all the bank accounts and the documents he has sent me.
Appreciate any input or protection advise on this.
Nicole,
RUN RUN RUN. Please do not believe this Peter Finney. He is a scam artist and has been since 2009 and maybe longer.
Di not believe anything he tells you... It's all a lie.
I was scammed by a guy I met on Cupid.com. He said he was Lt. Kelly Miller Andre in the US Army United Nations Peace keeping division. Last week he told me he was being shipped to Ibadan, Nigeria because of the unrest happening there. Initially I paid money to a Deanna Stephens in at 115 Bannerman Rd SW Bessemer. AL 35022. Three times in the amounts of $300, $129 and $80 thinking she was a UN agent in charge of collecting the communications fund so that I can talk with Kelly Miller Andre while he was deployed. Kelly and I spoke for a while then he asked me to open an USAA bank account for him so he can transfer funds from his account there to this account so I can then Western Union him that money. I did so and today he transferred $1,950 to the account and asked me to Western Union him $1800 to him in Nigeria where he was deployed and would need it to pay for some personal items. I was to send the money to: : ADEOSUN GABRIEL ADDRESS : NO 1, ARMY BARRACK, IBADAN. STATE : OYO. This guy Kelly looks like this and goes by this email address: lt_kellymiller@yahoo.com. Kelly goes with the story that he's divorced military man who will be retiring from the Army after 24 yrs and is looking to settle down, find love and get married. Does anyone have any information on this Lt. Kelly Miller Andre?
hi,im a kind of person who is really not "in" to online chatting or dating online.actually ive deleted my acct that ive created in live health.com coz im bored with guys who keeps on adding me.and then a guy who said that he is Miller Harrison,came,he said that he is s swiss and in london now working as an engr.he said that he is divorced in his Irish wife and has a teenager son whos not living with him.he is very good when in terms of "emotional aspects of women" and he can reach to you.i havent seen him on cam,,i just saw his pictures but looks so differently.yes he looks like mixed and when he phoned me i know that he has this kind of accent which is not an american,not a british or not even a swiss!he mailed me saying that he send me gifts etc.i check the copy of airway bill and it is TMX COURIER WORLDWIDE which is not a company anymore.i made a lot of investigation even his exixting name..he might be using other persons name and the pictures too.im still waiting for him to mail now....if he wants this 'game" that he is in to well then he can give me a try.
I have been talking to a man for a few months who says his name is Richard Adams, says he lives in Georgia, is a civil engineer and has a 13 year old son. He was currently contracted to Malaysia for a job. From the beginning he told me that he loved me, needed me and wanted to marry me. Stupid me, I believed him. He was only in Malaysia for a couple of days when he asked for money. He wanted me to send it Western Union to a reciever Dickson Rasak. When I told him that I didn't have the amount of money that he was asking for, he asked that I please send what ever amount that I could. Telling me that he couldn't use his credit cards or access his bank account from there. I sent him 1,000. A week later, he asked for more. When I couldn't send anymore his phone number was suddenly disconnected and he no longer responded to my emails. I haven't heard from him since. Has anyone else heard of him or have had a problem with him?
I have a friend in the same situation, with same man " Richard Adams " as you. Making huge promises, playing on her sympathy with sad stories (widow, 12 year old son, no family, etc). Met him thru an online dating service. He even went so far as to put his "son" on the phone with her.
J, I also talked to his "son". He told me the same sad story, he's widowed, has no family and is having to raise his 13 year old son "Steven" alone. He would email me many times a day and in every email he would send me links to youtube videos of songs that he said reminded him of me, he would call me numerous times, always telling me how much he loved me and just how much I meant to him. He sure knew how to "lay it on". Now that I have read many of the stories on this site, there were red flags that I should have recognized, but didn't. I sure hope if your friend hasn't ended contact with him yet, that she does as fast as she can. This man is no good.
Everyone,
Have been speaking with a Jeffrey Gunn who is 37 years old. I met him on a popular dating website. He says that he went to Oxford College in the UK (England) and lives in Michigan. Said he was over in the UK procuring contracts to sell large farm equipment and was attacked and burglarized in his hotel room on New Year's Day and after recuperating in the hospital, cannot afford an airline ticket back to the United States now. Has a beautiful 11 year old daughter in Michigan who lives with his exe's mother and said that both his parents were tragically killed in a car accident. He has offered to send one of his paychecks for me to cash which I refused, has asked me to sell my belongings, borrow money from my friends and even requested that I trade in any gold jewelry I have for cash to assist him. I have checked all the boards like this one and cannot find his name anywhere or a description that even comes close to him. In his pictures he is very handsome and has brown hair and blue eyes and I couldn't find his photo on any of the scammer sites either. I phoned him once in the UK (London, England), but the connection was so bad I could barely hear him. His grammar and spelling are very good and he is very consistent and does not seem to contradict himself in our chats or change his story in any way. If anyone has any experience with this man, please let me know as we have been chatting for months now and I have never seen him on webcam and need to know if he is for real before I even consider helping him in any way.
Boy am I glad I found this site. Recently started an online dating process and met what seems to be a very nice gentleman who claims to be from a large city near me. He has not given me any 'woe is me' story as of yet, but I'm seeing somethings doing research that seem to match the situation. He supposedly moved to this large city near me a year ago and is an interior designer who has been sent to West Africa to design the interior of a buisness there. Here's where the red flags start. He claims to have a 6 yo daughter who lives with his mother, his father has passed. No response to the question of what happened to 'Lisa's" mother. A friend of mine had found out some things about online dating scams as she was scammed herself and one other big red flag is the two first names being the first and last. Also that he has numbers at the end of his email. Now I know a lot of people have that, I do myself. But after a few days of emailing he has such 'strong' feelings for me and cannot wait to meet upon his return. I looked him up on e-verify but nothing really came up but I looked myself up and all the information was completely incorrect. I want to believe this man is for real, naturally, but the bad punctuation and using 'no' for 'know', the sentences run together. The pix are normal pix, no professional shots all of the same person in different dress/actions.
Email is gregabbey86@**** has anyone had contact with him? I want to believe he is for real but not so sure. And why would someone with a privately owned interior design business be selected to work on a building overseas? I would think they would go with a large company if it were legit......
Any knowledge would be appreciated!!
It has been awhile since you posted, are you still speaking with this man? Any question for money or woe is me story come up yet? I ask because I am going through a very similar situation, and your guy sounds very much like mine. Mine has just asked for me to have money transferred into my account, like I would really give some stranger my bank account information, and I was devestated. Anyway, let me know please, if you would like to share stories.
Has any one come cross the person by the name christopher dele robinson, works in nigeria from va from black baby boomers .com., beware
Yes....i am one of sofian carlos's victim. He ask money from me when he was in malaysia airport. he said that he was stranded due to his lost lugage. a malay lady called me i think named norhidayah pretend a custom officer. they ask me to send money for the luggage and i refused. sofian talked rubbish to me coz i dnt send him money. i told him he was scammer and i dnt believe him..
Sofian Carlos, just the another name of this scammer CARLOS ALEXANDER, THIS GUY IS THE BIGGEST SCAMMER IN MALAYSIA, JUST WONDERING STILL WALK FREE
pls reply me.
I totally agreed, after being sign up with lot of Dating websites i have found that most good looking profiles are just fake and uploaded by website itself to attract members...I just keep my self away from such bluf websites. :)
Anyone ever heard of Moris Baldwin, 46 years old? I met him through asiandating.com. He said he lives in North Carolina and claimed have a gallery of paintings, antiques and sculptures. His parents had died, had only maternal uncle who lives in Texas. His wife died two years ago due to breast cancer when she was pregnant. His email : morisbaldwin@hotmail.com. His cellphone number : 13609753497. We have been IM-ing for days and emailing and he even called me on my cell phone. He sent me pictures as well, seemed too good to be true until I started to get suspicious when I read about all the scams. He said wanted to come to my country after attending antiques fairs in India. There he was in trouble, for allegedly buying stolen antiques. He asked for help to send the money because it had run out of cash, while the traveler check can’t cashed because its limits are too large. This is his phone number in India : 919654795516. But I'm beginning to suspect, because all the data he gave me was not valid. When I started to challenge him and get suspicious, he was angry and said that I don’t believe him, that trust is an important thing in a relationship. I also check in online dating scams. He was also using another email address (morismoses@hotmail.com) with the same pics as given to me. Has anyone else been contacted by him? Please be careful..