Internet Fraudsters Steal Hearts and Cash
There was a time when you only had to worry about a potential lover breaking your heart. Now it seems that you've got to keep your eyes on your bank account, too.
As Americans have turned in greater numbers to the Internet in search of love, scammers have found a fresh batch of potential victims and created a new field of fraudulent activity: "romance fraud: a scam designed to prey on [people's] emotions to get [their] money," CNN reports.
Romance scammers troll dating sites to find potential victims. After convincing them of their love, the scammers start hitting their targets up for cash.
I know, it sounds like regular dating to me, too. But such schemes have apparently triggered steep financial losses, trails of broken hearts, and voicemail boxes full of unreturned calls.
Barb Sluppick runs RomanceScams.org, a Web site dedicated to helping victims of romance fraud, like herself. She said the site has had more than 30,000 members since its start in June 2005.
The number of broken hearts aside, romance fraud costs victims millions of dollars each year. Of her 30,000 members, Sluppick said, 883 people have reported their financial losses. They add up to $8,244,800.05, she said.
So how to prevent yourself from becoming a victim?
RomanceScams.org also lists a few red flags to detect a possible scammer: If their spelling is horrible, they use emoticons heavily and they appear to be available at unusual hours for your time zone, they may be scamming you.
So there yu have it. :( Fair warneing.
Tags: internet | relationships | fraud
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Reader Comments
If You Think Thats Bad, Listen To This!
Scammers used to be confined to Africa, now it's a world wide crime. In 2/2007 I received an email from a company, supposedly from Switzerland saying they saw my resume on Careerbuilder.com, they offered me a job as a re shipper. They said that my job entailed receiving orders from companies that didn't ship overseas initiated from overseas customers. I was to weigh the package, notify them, they would send me the required postage and a shipping label where to send the package. The scammer had duplicated the actual company's website in every detail except one, the actual company wasn't hiring overseas workers.
The phone number used in the phony website turned out to be Hertz Rent A Car at Zürich Airport, they said they had been getting numerous calls concerning this company and it wasn't there. I told them I'd call back, went to whois, checked out the domain, it came up as being registered in 1/2007, the real company had been in business for over 15 years. The phony site was based in China, I called back the rent a car company, told them what was going on, emailed the actual company and gave them the info that I found on whois plus the results of my tracking where the email came from. Don't be fooled by these online scam artists, no matter how bad you need a job, scrutinize everything you receive that you didn't initiate. There are services on the web where you can track an email's origin if you think it's suspicious, just view all headers, copy the IP number and use it to track the email.
ScamVictimsUnited.com
Education is the key to fighting these scams! Learn the warning signs. NEVER wire money to anyone that you have never met in person, for any reason. Even if the bank tells you that the check is clear or that funds are available . . . it could still come back as counterfeit . . . that is what happened to me.
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