Perils & Risks Social Networking & Dating Scams
Most of us these days, have accounts with the large networks such as Facebook, Myspace. I recently corresponded with a lady for a month before realising all her photos were cloned from another person! It is easy to get sucked in.
In the world of finance it is called doing 'Due Dilligence' where you check and re-check the figures, does everything stack up with the deal. You must do the same ASL Age, Sex, Location! Proof of identity if you want to have a relationship with a person. Even if you don't want to meet a person, you want to know at least they are genuine! I spend a lot of time online and discovered the REAL persons profile completely by accident. She jumped out of the screen and hit me in the face BINGO!
Years ago, I got conned once out of £15 for a rail fare! In some ways it was a wakeup call and the BEST money I ever spent. Now I am ALWAYS on guard! You hear all the time of Bigamists and conmen & women using the internet to scam people.
Some of these scams are highly sophisticated. There are actual firms and groups of people in so called 'boiler rooms' sending out millions of emails everyday. They try and befriend people and then scam them. Lots of profiles on MySpace and Facebook are fakes known as bots. You can build up a large community quite quickly and sell them stuff. Men if you get a beautiful Russian lady writing to you, it is mostly likely a man working to a script! Some of the correspondence can go on for months! Some people will send thousands of pounds for airfare and Visas. If they trap 5% it is going to be VERY profitable.
There are a great many variations of these scams to get you hooked! One Tip. look at the email address does it look like a real or machine generated address? Copy & Paste into search in Yahoo and Google to see if it is a known scammer. There are lots of websites tracking these bad men and women who play on peoples fears, hopes, dreams, hearts and minds.
Finally, it sounds obvious but NEVER EVER send money (especially abroad), to someone you met on the internet, period!!!
Most of us these days, have accounts with the large networks such as Facebook, Myspace. I recently corresponded with a lady for a month before realising all her photos were cloned from another person! It is easy to get sucked in.
In the world of finance it is called doing 'Due Dilligence' where you check and re-check the figures, does everything stack up with the deal. You must do the same ASL Age, Sex, Location! Proof of identity if you want to have a relationship with a person. Even if you don't want to meet a person, you want to know at least they are genuine! I spend a lot of time online and discovered the REAL persons profile completely by accident. She jumped out of the screen and hit me in the face BINGO!
Years ago, I got conned once out of £15 for a rail fare! In some ways it was a wakeup call and the BEST money I ever spent. Now I am ALWAYS on guard! You hear all the time of Bigamists and conmen & women using the internet to scam people.
Some of these scams are highly sophisticated. There are actual firms and groups of people in so called 'boiler rooms' sending out millions of emails everyday. They try and befriend people and then scam them. Lots of profiles on MySpace and Facebook are fakes known as bots. You can build up a large community quite quickly and sell them stuff. Men if you get a beautiful Russian lady writing to you, it is mostly likely a man working to a script! Some of the correspondence can go on for months! Some people will send thousands of pounds for airfare and Visas. If they trap 5% it is going to be VERY profitable.
There are a great many variations of these scams to get you hooked! One Tip. look at the email address does it look like a real or machine generated address? Copy & Paste into search in Yahoo and Google to see if it is a known scammer. There are lots of websites tracking these bad men and women who play on peoples fears, hopes, dreams, hearts and minds.
Finally, it sounds obvious but NEVER EVER send money (especially abroad), to someone you met on the internet, period!!!
