Dating Scams


by Stephanie Constantina - Date: 2007-02-09 - Word Count: 521 Share This!

Dating scams are perpetrated by individuals who become members of singles services but who have joined the service not to find a date but specifically to scam the other members. Here are some tips on how to spot them and avoid them.

Firstly be wary of emails you may receive from other members of a dating service which seem as if they could have been sent to just anybody. This may make you suspicious that the email has not be written specifically to be sent to you, and is being sent out to many other members as well, perhaps with just the names changed. If, when chatting to somebody that you email, you tell them a few things about yourself, then it is reasonable to expect him or her to respond specifically about those things -- unless that person is totally self-obsessed, of course!

Naturally you will want to ask your new contact about his or her life. Watch out for any evasiveness in answering any reasonable questions of the kind that might crop up in any conversation. Clearly you can't expect somebody to expect to be interrogated and reply to every question -- we are speaking about normal conversation here, and be aware of a tendency in your contact to only answer vaguely or not to answer things that you would expect someone reasonable to answer. This alone is not enough to say that your contact is planning to try to scam you, but such evasiveness would surely be grounds for not continuing the conversation in any case.

If you do develop the beginnings of a friendship with a new contact, somebody who appears to respond normally to email conversations, do not drop your guard. Your contact may be very good at lulling you into a false sense of security. Remain leery in an unspoken way at all times. There are examples of friendly conversations that have persisted for many months before the scammer made his or her move.

What kinds of scam do these people try to perpetrate? Almost always they are trying to get their hands on your money, and by appearing to be your friend they are in a better position to trick you out of it than a stranger would be. One ploy is to ask for money to pay for airfare to come to visit you. If they have lulled you into a false sense of security and the relationship you are having with them appears to be real then this request for money may seem innocent when it is not. Another ploy, if English is not their first language, is to ask for a fee for translation services.

However, do not expect scammers from overseas to be the only ones operating. Those perpetrating scams can be found in every country, in every place. Be aware of the danger and do not let fears of these people spoil your online dating experience -- most people who join an online dating service are like you, interested only in finding dates or starting a relationship. But if you are vigilant about the danger of scammers, you are likely to have a better online dating experience.


Related Tags: dating service, find a date, scammers, dating scams, singles services, online dating experience

Resources: Find out more about online dating at Dating Services Online, and learn how to use the personals effectively at Internet Personals Sites. Get a free ebook on dating and relationships here: Free Ebook - Online Dating. You have permission to use this article in your web site, blog or ezine but only if you make no changes: to comply with the copyright all html links must remain active and spider-able, and anchor texts must be kept as they are.

Your Article Search Directory : Find in Articles

© The article above is copyrighted by it's author. You're allowed to distribute this work according to the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license.
 

Recent articles in this category:



Most viewed articles in this category: