All about online dating scams – Part 3

Life is not a walk in the park, and unscrupulous people looking to make easy money will look for opportunities in the least likely places. This unfortunately includes online dating. And while for the most part dating sites are populated with well-meaning singles just like you, it is important that you keep your eyes open and stay alert to warning signs that you may be corresponding with a potential scammer.

In our last installment we showed you a quick and cheap scam – a scammer posts pictures of a very attractive woman, strikes up a quickly warming correspondence, and soon asks for a relatively small sum to be sent regularly for “internet expenses” or “translation services” or the like. As long as the victim continues to send money, he or she will continue to receive messages and beautiful pictures from the scammer.

Other scams go deeper, both in terms of emotional engagement and in the sums of money involved. These are practiced scammers that take their time to create a sense of intimacy and build a relationship to the extent that their victims want to marry them and bring them over to the US. It is at this point that very large sums are required (and oftentimes sent) for covering travel and visa expenses – needless to say, the scammer never shows up and simply disappears with thousands of dollars.

Sweetheart scammers often use the “bait and switch” technique for extracting large sums of money from their victims. After exchanging lengthy correspondence in which they create a sense of emotional intimacy, they also make steamy offers and promises of marriage, followed by a request for money to sort “travel expenses.” Since these messages are accompanied by pictures of young and beautiful women (often stolen images from models who have no relation to the scam at all), many men find the opportunity hard to pass by. This is an example of an extorting email received by an actual scam victim – note how the declarations of love segue into building a sexual fantasy, followed immediately by “money difficulties”:

You mine supermen and I of you so to Like!!! I have understood that you are necessary for me as air and that I want To be with you beside. While I to be sick I frequently to think of you. I represented as you enter into my room and I feel your aroma. You cautiously put me on a sofa to unbutton to me a dress and your soft hands begin to caress my breast softly. And our bodies merge in the whole and you compress me so urgently, that we hear as our hearts begin to beat in one rhythm. Then we begin to be borrowed love. About as I to want that this dream was carried out! But I test some difficulties with money to the visa. (…)would like to leave for you in marriage and to begin your wife. We would have fine loving family and we would be very happy together. You to want that I became your wife? On registration of the visa, all information, documents it is necessary for me about 350 dollars. But I to not have such big sum of money as at me not the big wages and I was not capable will pay the visa. I very much ask you that you have helped me to pay cost of the visa and registration of all necessary documents that I could receive the visa and arrive to you. Your help is very necessary for me. I am very strong to love you and can not live without you any more and one day.

In our next article we will cover the warning signs that you may be dealing with a scammer. Stay with us to learn how to protect yourself from disappointment and keep your online dating experience a safe and satisfying one.

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