I have been chatting with a Chinese lady through the chnlove website (www.chnlove.com) and I hope to meet her on the 15th of July in Changsha. Though I have read some feedback on other websites saying that the lady I meet could be someone different from the photo. I have heard it could be a scam.
What are your views on this and are these stories true?

This is ... unbelievable.

Research out of the UK today says that perhaps as many as 200,00 people in that country have been victims of online romance scams and the same study says over 1 million people personally know someone who has been scammed by one of these heartless fraudsters.

The online research was conducted by the UK's University of Leicester found that 52% of people surveyed online had heard of the online romance scam when it was explained to them and that one in every 50 online adults know someone personally who had fallen victim to it. The results confirm the law enforcement belief that this type of crime is often not reported by those affected, in many cases due to embarrassment at having been duped, or through a continuing hope that there will eventually be a genuine romance, the study found.

Katie Stuart lost $100k to a Nigerian love scammer whom she met online 2 years go. Even with the help of Consumer Protection and WA Scamnet (launching its new website), they managed to catch the scammer but she did not get all her money back. Consumer Protection estimates West Australians lost about $5 million to scammers last financial year.

She soon struck up a friendship with a man called Paul, who, over the course of a few weeks, convinced her he was interested in a relationship.

Eventually Paul, who said he lived in the US, persuaded Ms Stuart to become a joint-venture partner with him in a property he "owned" in Florida. Ms Stuart said initially he only asked for a few thousand dollars to help "renovate" the house, but over the course of a year, more small amounts soon added up.

It is a great day to celebrate when a scammer is brought to justice, especially one who cheated both money and love. 

Sin Chew Daily reported that an Australian woman who lost an undisclosed amount of money in an online romance scam decided to hire a private investigator to help locate the fraudsters.

Her persistence was duly rewarded when four suspects, including three Nigerians, were nabbed in Malaysia last Friday.

"I am XXXXXXXX, from Indonesia. Recently I have received email from guy, with name Rocco...

Received this from a visitor and her comments are somewhere in our posts. By the way, the names used by scammers are often not their real name. Do not assume that the real person with that name is involved. As we always warn people that everything in a scam is fake including the name, you just  can't believe any piece of the story.

Does a match-making website run online lottery? It is not mentioned anywhere on the official website, so this is a confirmed scam.

However, there is no need to check the original site most of the time, because you should Never respond to a "lottery" winnings mail coming from a free email address.

This report discusses about dating sites in respond to a complaint, and does NOT imply in any way that Elitemeeting.com is a scam.

How does a membership sites start off? Most membership websites started up as a blank site, unless the website has a different marketing strategy. More often than not, you will end up chatting with people who are just like any other dating site - a working class commoner.

Not all Nigerian men are bad, but there are enough bad apples to create the worldwide phenomenon called 419 scam, lottery scam and love scam.

Check out the video.

She had gone on the Web to search for a life partner but his web of lies left her nearly $12,000 poorer.
Last Friday night, the 37-year-old accounts executive, who declined to be named, made a police report after she was cheated by a man she 'met' on international dating website match.com

Its nice to receive contribution like this.

From Debbie:
Just wanted to alert you to, what I believe, may be a different turn on a traditional scam.  Yes, through an online dating site, he started a chat with me, which proceeded to yahoo chatting.  We have/had been chatting for over 7 months ( which I was dupped to begin with).  I always figured the scammers were in a rush to make their kill and then move on to the next.  Oh, by the way, I have worked in the electronic financial industry for many years, so I do keep on top of money fraud & checks, etc...