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ONLINE SAFETY
Safety is Your Responsibility
Disabled Dating
and Friendship is a fun place to meet new people and make new
friends,
but before getting too involved with someone you only know Online,
you need to use a bit of common sense for your own safety and security.
(These tips are more for dating and people planning to meet, but there is good
advice there
for "just penpals" as well)
1 Use your instincts.
We know you want to trust everyone and believe everything they say, especially
when they're saying what you want to hear. If it's too good to be true, it
sometimes
is. More often than not, the person you've met online is just the same in real
life,
but take your time to get to know them before moving things up a notch or two.
2 Remain anonymous.
Until you know that the person you're interested in is the sort you want to
meet,
remain anonymous. Use your nickname and private message board to communicate.
Don't be pressured to "send mail to my private email" because you'll be giving
out your personal details in your return address.
3 Don't be pushed!
If you're not ready to meet someone, don't be coerced into it. You'll be upset
and
you might be putting yourself at risk. So what if you're accused of "not being
real",
at least you'll feel good until you ARE ready to meet in person.
4 Spend time online.
If you're not 100% certain this person is for real, spend time online chatting
through email until you're sure.
5 Talk on the phone.
You can learn a lot about someone by talking over the phone.
To ensure your
anonymity, give a mobile phone number or use a pay phone.
If you hear anything
that gives you doubts, don't meet.
6 Photos.
It's true that a picture is worth 1000 words. It doesn't tell the whole story,
but you can tell whether you're physically attracted to this person.
If the photo
looks too good to be true, it could have been "borrowed" from another dating
Site or even a Modelling Agency Web Site, so ask for another photo to be taken
in front of a Landmark you suggest or holding up an object that you choose.....
If it can't be done, it might not be their real photo!
7 Personality flaws.
If your new friend displays controlling behavior. (needs to know where you are,
is unhappy when you do things away from the computer), shows anger or
anything
else that makes you feel uncomfortable, then this person is probably going to
be trouble with a CAPITAL T and maybe is best avoided!
8 Be safe.
If you do decide to meet for the first time, tell someone where you're going.
Take your own car, public transportation or ask a friend to take you and pick
you up. Get a friend to call you on your cell phone at a pre-arranged time,
if the date is not going as well as you hoped you can pretend it's an urgent
call
and use it as an excuse to leave. On the other hand is everything is fine
you
reassure your friend, perhaps by using a pre-arranged code word?
NEVER go visit
someone at their house or invite them to yours.
Treat an Internet romance like it was simply a chance meeting.
No matter how many months you have
been chatting Online, you
can't really
know a person until you spend time with them face to face in person and
when you do meet them for real
just
take it like any other FIRST date,
not like you actually KNOW them well.
These security
measures won't last forever and if he or she is put off by them,
then tell them to go find someone else. There is never going to be only one person
that you must have in order to be happy.
9 Remain wary.
Don't believe everything you see on screen or that they tell you...
The $200 plane fare she wants you to send her so she can come visit you might
go straight to her drug dealer. The wife he says he "lost in a tragic auto
accident"
might be very much alive and well and in the next room, blissfully ignorant of his
Internet
activities!
If you have any doubts, ask questions - lots of questions. If there
is even the slightest bit of doubt, move on.
10 Be Extra Careful if your new friend is
Overseas.
A recent twist to Online email scams is that some fraudsters, mainly of African
origin,
have been creating fake profiles on dating and PenPal sites, complete with very
attractive
looking photos that they have copied off genuine profiles on other dating sites!
According to the US State Department a large amount of financial fraud
originates from
countries like Nigeria and Ghana because these countries do not have laws
against wire or
internet fraud and they have therefore become centres for Internet fraud
and scam
criminal gangs.
Be extra, extra cautious if someone's profile says they are from North
America or
Europe,
but in their communications with you they come up with some story about
being
temporarily
in Nigeria or Ghana or some such far away place, and they ask for
your help with
either
money, tickets and/or a visa to get back home to America or
Europe, or to come
and
visit you because there is a
very strong chance
they are one of
these con artists running
one of these scams!
In fact anyone from overseas who almost as soon as you get to know them suddenly
wants money, tickets, visas, a cell phone or a laptop computer is quite probably
running
a scam.
BOTTOM LINE IS: AFRICA + MONEY = SCAM
Another scam to beware of involves Cashiers or Company Checks and postal money orders...
A person from another country, usually an African country, or someone claiming
to be an
American temporarily visiting or working in an African country will ask for your
help to cash
a check or postal money order.
They will claim that there are no banks who handle US$ or the bank won't accept
their
ID or that they will be charged very high bank fees in the country they are
in, so they will
suggest they send you the check or money order so that you may cash it at your bank and
send them
back the money via Western Union.
Do NOT fall for this very common trick. The check or money order is almost
certain to be
either stolen or a forgery but your bank will not discover this until several
days after they cashed
it for you so you will end up being stuck with a bad check and out of pocket for
the money.
Never under any circumstances, send money to a stranger via Western Union.
Remember.... Africa + Money = Scam
Western Union does not require any ID from the recipient, just a code number
supplied by you.
Once you have sent the money, you can't recover it. You may never hear from the
recipient again,
and they will be untraceable, and you will be in trouble with the authorities
for cashing a bad check!
The granddaddy scam of them all of course is that they claim to have a
substantial sum of money
tied up in a "lost bank account" or "deceased relative's estate" and for some
long and complicated
reason they need your help to get these millions of dollars released and they
are willing to split the
amount with you .... we hope none of members fall for that tired old trick.
For those who don't know, in that trick despite being heirs to a huge fortune
they are temporarily
penniless and need you to wire them some of your money to
pay bribes, taxes, fees and legal
expenses to get their fortune released. Be warned that they will bleed you dry
until you get
suspicious and stop sending them money.
The fortune never existed and never was going to be spilt with you, they only
wanted to scam
all the expense money out of you!
WARNING SIGNS OF A
SCAMMER
Compiled by
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romancescams
They might be a scammer if...
- Their profile picture looks professionally done and can be found on a modeling
website
FocusHawaii.com, NewFaces.com, Q6.com, TheModelMax.com, BlackCuties.com,
PerspectivePhotography.com to name a few
- Their height/weight is not proportional -e.g. 6’ and 95 lbs
- They claim to have blonde hair and blues eyes when the picture is dark hair
and
brown eyes or vice versa
- They have a wedding ring on the photo yet they claim to be single
- They claim to be Native American or some other ethnicity when the photo is
Caucasian
- They claim to be older/younger than the photo looks
- Their specified age range of who they want to meet seems to have no limit- e.g. 25-60
- They have weird usernames containing "4real" or "4luv"
- Their first names are also weird, like Martins, Williams, Kevins, Waynes,
etc...
(instead of Martin, William, Kevin, Wayne)
- Female names are often misspelled, like Jenifer instead of Jennifer, Ashly
instead of Ashley, or Marry instead of Mary.
- Their name is like two first names
e.g. John Martin or like two last names
e.g. Williams Smith
- Or their last names are Cole, Moore, Smith or Williams
- They say they are "XX by name" and "XX by age"
- They address you as "Dear" or "Beloved"
- Their photos are rotated 45 degrees
- They say they are from Keller, VA. Why? Because it has the same zip code as
Nigeria: 23401
- Their occupation is often "contractor" or "petroleum engineer" for men and
"model" for women
- Their introductory letter often contains the phrase: "Remeber the distance or
colour
does not matter but love matters alot in life." (typical for
Senegal scammers)
- They immediately want to get off the website and onto Yahoo IM or MSN IM
- They are not usually around on the weekends to IM
- They IM at unusual hours for your time zone
- Their profile seems to disappear off the website immediately after
conversation begins
- Their spelling is atrocious
- They are notorious for using 'i' instead of 'I'
- They consistently use webspeak or abbreviations: u r ur cos pls/plz ma sry brb
div acc
- They often claim to have high incomes
and University Degrees but...
- Their grammar and spelling is not consistent with how educated people speak and is
not even up to the standard of how ordinary people speak English...
They say "am" instead of "I am", they say "I
will" instead of "I would",
they say "the state" instead of "the USA", men describe themselves as "widows"
instead of "widowers".
- They often mix up their phrases:
i will like to heer from you soonest
I am kool
Do you have anyman you care to meet
Do you have any man you planning to meet
Looking for someone to love and care for in life
Am cheerfull in life
I will like to meet someone that is careing and loveing for real in life
i am too young for my age if you don’t know
Ok so how will you feel if i says i dont mind you
i will like you to be my best friend
You are so pretty for my likeness
- They appear very uneducated with their speaking/writing skills
- They misunderstand our slang or comparisons such as night owl/early bird,
poker face
- They immediately start using pet names with you: hon/hun baby/babe sweety/sweetie
- They over-use emoticons
- They are notorious for using BUZZ
- They do not like to answer personal questions about themselves and tend to
ignore questions
- The details they give you on IM are often different that what was stated on
their profiles,
one of the more common ones they give different answers to is
their birthdate, height/weight, and age
- If you catch them on an inconsistency they will claim a friend or relative
must’ve been using their
id to chat with you, they will always try to come up
with a cover up and of course, you are always
wrong or mistaken
- They often misspell the cities/towns they claim they are from and are
unfamiliar with any of the
local landmarks and attractions
- They do not know common questions that every US citizen would know the answer
to
- If you ask them a question they don’t know they will usually be offline for a
length of time so they
can go look up the answer on the internet always claiming
they had a phone call or had to go to the
bathroom etc..
- There are other times they are gone from the conversation for a length of time
and will sometimes
come back at you with a different name, they’re usually
conversing with more than one person at a time
- They typically ask you to get on your webcam yet they never seem to have a
webcam of their own
- They like to send you poems or love letters, most of which can be traced back
to lovingyou.com,
sometimes they even forget to change the name in the poem or
letter to match your name
- They claim it was destiny or fate and you are meant to be together
- They claim God brought you to him/her
- They immediately want your address so as to send you flowers, candy, and teddy
bears,
often purchased with stolen credit cards
- They claim to love you either immediately or within 24-48 hours
- They ask for your phone # but when they call you can barely understand a word
- They may give you a phone # but it’s typically a calling card or a call center,
you can rarely get them on the phone
- They are so in love with you that they cannot live without you BUT they need
you
to send them some money so they can come to you
- They typically claim to be from the US (or your local region) but they are
overseas,
or going overseas mainly to Nigeria, sometimes the UK for business or
family matters
- They often do not know the correct time difference between where you are and
where
they claim to be
- They often claim to have one parent that is of African descent
- A majority of them claim to have lost a spouse/child/parent in a horrific
traffic accident
or airplane accident or any of the above are sick or in the
hospital
- They have no close family or friend or business associates to turn to,
and refuse to ask
their Employer or the US embassy for help , instead they can
only rely on you - a stranger they picked off the
internet!
- They tend to ask you to send them cell phones and laptops
- They would like to mail you packages or letters and have you forward them on
for them,
sometimes to Africa, sometimes to another US address
- To them love equals financial assistance: if you do not send them money or
help
them out with what they ask, you do not love them
- They will ask you to open a bank account for them in your name, often in Wells
Fargo bank
- They will ask you for your bank account information
- They will send you a check or money order and ask you to cash it for them and
wire the money to them via Western Union
- They frequently send fraudulent checks via Qchex.com
- They often claim they (or a close relative) are in the hospital and the doctor
will not
perform the necessary operation unless you send the money
- Even when they are in the hospital they can IM with you because the doctor has
a
laptop and is so very generous to let them use it
- They claim they’ve been mugged and have no money and are being held hostage in
the hotel and are not being allowed to leave until the bill is paid, often they
will let
you talk to the "hotel manager" (a fellow scammer) who will verify the story
- They also claim he somehow "lost" their company money and cannot pay his
employees or complete some deal: there is always some desperate story as to why
you have to send money immediately.
- If you deny them or question them they become verbally abusive and will resort
to threats
- Above all, if you call them a scammer they are highly offended and some will
start
throwing words at you in their native language.
The above Warning Signs were courtesy of Romance Scams:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romancescams/
Africa + Money = Scam
* A good cyber-scammer can make up to $7,000 a month -
22
times the
average Nigerian wage - from milking gullible
Westerners -
so be warned and beware!
12 Get
all the facts.
If you still have some nagging doubts about
someone,
there are Online resources
like "Net
Detective" that you can use in the privacy of
your own home to get the
poop on them by looking up their credit, driving and criminal records,
birth, death
& marriage
certificates, divorce decrees, trial transcripts
and court orders, and a
whole lot more!
It's not expensive and if it saves you from just one low-life predator
it will
have been worth many times the modest investment!
Get
The POOP on Anybody
For more information on Net Detective
CLICK HERE
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