Dating Scams and identifying Scammers

Be it Social Networking Sites or Micro blogging Sites scammers are everywhere. They flood your mail inboxes or emotionally blackmail you to part with your money. Despite of the awareness campaigns every year millions of people fall prey to these scammers. After one or two mails these people would trust you with their lives and move to love so that they can squeeze money out of you on one pretext or the other. Be suspicious when someone asks you to send money by Moneygram or Western Union. These people have only one goal and that is to get whatever you have. Mostly the letters they send are vague, difficult to understand or are repeated and you may receive a reply within a short time after you send a reply. They make you believe in their sob story to the extent that you may feel that they only have you for help. They are experts in extracting your credit card numbers or bank information by promising you money in return or marriage to get a visa or whatever. While you think you have met your ‘Prince Charming’ or ‘Dream Princess’ you may not imagine even in your wildest dreams that these gold diggers can emotionally destroy you too. What’s more the pretty pictures they may send you may be of some model or stolen from sites like photobucket and not their own! They may ask you to come on cam but say that they do not have one of their own. I have even heard of instances where the dating scam victims were asked to pose nude and these pictures were used to blackmail them later.

But most of the times we can identify a scammer because of some common patterns they display. Your intuition and Google can be your best friends in identifying scammers. Whenever you see something out of ordinary make sure that you verify it. There are several scam awareness sites dedicated to this cause and run by mostly scam victims who know the tricks and trade of these scammers. Check these sites and also Google the email addresses, names, phone numbers and part of the letters send to you and you are most likely to find some useful information on them.

These Scammers are menace let us spread awareness so that we help others from getting cheated.