On line dating scams

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-30-2007
On line dating scams
11
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 10:32am

I am not sure if this is an age related thing or not, do they just target us 40 plus people figuring we are desperate or something? . .. do you guys get all these on line scammers that show up from the OLD sites? No .. . not the "scammers" that use twenty year old pictures, or pictures they scanned out of a magazine . .lol . . .not the ones who lie and say they are employed and kind and nice and have teeth lol (-:

I am talking real scams.

For us guys it is two things . .. the most common I get all the time from OLD sites is the "22 year old Russian girl in the internet cafe . . . she falls in love with me from my first email just because I spell "hi" so much better than the rest of the world . .. lol. .. . and if I can just wire a few thousand dollars to her for a plane ticket and visa she will make me happy forever . .. professional pictures and all.

The other is an email soliciting a response on regular email. Then she says check out my web page . . .and that of coarse is a web cam, credit card required. lol (You can not "chat" on yahoo anymore at all . .that is all that's out there.)

My daughter helped me set up a myspace account a few days ago, already both have happened . .. seen them at least 50 or a hundred times each in just a few years. I know girls who have been taken on similar scams, business investments . .. you name it. I always read them .. . I like to know the games . . plus I try to get them removed from the sites.

So . .. do the girls get the same kind of scams?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-16-2006
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 11:05am
No I do get a lot of e-mails about my long lost uncle who died in Panama about 5 years ago and he had tons of money and I am his only next of kin. i have to contact this attorney immediately to get this money or the guriella's are going to shoot the tiny babies. It'll cost me a couple thousand dollars in legal fees but the amount that my long lost uncle left me will reimburse me for any money I put forward.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-16-2005
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 11:07am

LOL

Hmmm I don't have a myspace account I always kind of viewed myspace as rather juvenile (no offense to anyone that has a myspace account) but it just comes across that way to me so I never set one up, but I've never gotten the type of emails you spoke about on any of the online dating accounts I've ever been on, I've been on match.com, eharmony and a few tango wire dating sites and I've never had a problem. That's very strange.

Now I've gotten Nigerian scamming "send me money" becuase my wife has cancer emails at my regular email but I just delete those but never at a dating site.

Smile,

Deirdre

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-30-2007
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 11:28am

Yea, I thought all kids and guys in yellow rain coats too. . lol
My daughter showed me there are thousands of people over 40. (-: Mostly it is so I can set up a photo album to share with some friends. Want to see my boring pictures? lol It however does have the profile thing just like Match.

I never got the web cam scam off match, but i did from a few others . . .the Russian thing, I think they troll the sights hoping for lonely men or something. The ones you are talking about, I know a girl who got burned off of Match on that one . .. you tend to want to believe a guy who is "in love" with you . .. (-; Hers was a high bread scam . .. business thing, money to get into the country . . free up bank accounts . .. he was totaly in love with her . . some such thing. Burned her for almost 4K.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-26-2006
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 11:31am

>>Hmmm I don't have a myspace account I always kind of viewed myspace as rather juvenile (no offense to anyone that has a myspace account) but it just comes across that way to me so I never set one up

No, you're right...I find it a little juvenile and I actually have an account. :) I have met a couple guys on there, though...I find it helpful that everyone isn't there specifically to find dates, not that there's anything wrong with dating sites. I'm there mostly just to goof off with my other friends on there (I rarely "befriend" anyone whom I don't already know....what's the point?) and if I happen to meet someone, great.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-16-2005
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 11:44am
I'm always amazed when I hear people falling for these scams, it always amazes me that people are so vulnerable to fall for them. Like that Mary Winkler person, the one that shot her preacher husband, she apparently fell for a few of these scams and gave money to people like this, I mean I give money to legit charities and to people I know, but i've neve given money to strangers who just randomly contact me and I never would nor to things that sound too far fetched or unbelievable.

Smile,

Deirdre

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 12:45pm

I have a friend who "met" a guy through a Christian dating site--they emailed and I think even talked on the phone for a while--he was supposedly in Europe and going to Africa to set up a missionary site or something like that. He was supposed to come visit her but then started asking for money to help with the missionary thing...she realized he was trying to scam her. He was willing to put some time into it in order to build trust, but I'm sure he had things going with several women hoping one of them would pay off.

She had the mindset that because he was on a Christian site, he was legit.

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-16-2005
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 1:06pm
I suppose but still she never met him in person right? so he was still a stranger right? So I would still be skeptical to give anyone I didn't really know money. I mean I don't even give people on the street money, if they ask for money for food, I'd buy them a hamburger before I'd give them cash. I guess maybe I'm too wary or untrusting of things like this, or very cynical of scams. Plus there is just always an angle. You know. If someone is asking you for money before they've even met you my radar is up.

Smile,

Deirdre

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 1:09pm

Oh, I'm with you, I would have been skeptical from the get-go. She's a smart woman though and she was taken in for a while, until the requests for money started coming. Some of the scammers are very good at playing on people's assumptions and emotions.

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-16-2005
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 1:34pm

Yeah I think they go in for vulnerable people.

But I still am always amazed that people fall for it.

Smile,

Deirdre

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2006
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 5:40pm

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My gay male friend has been targetted for this type of scam by gay men (or at least men posing to be gay) from other countries.

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