google searches are your best friend in Online Romance deception detection

[Kendahke]

What an incredible experience I've just gone through.

 

I think I was almost taken in by a romance scam online. I say "I think" because some things don't add up.

 

The weird thing is that the person with whom I was corresponding is legitimate, in that the person in his pictures were him--he has a facebook and linkedin profile and both of them are him. His profile on OK Cupid was partially lifted from a profile off of the Sacramento Bee singles page; 90% of his emails to me were lifted from romance form letter sites on line. He did write a few lovely emails to me that I was not able to trace with a google search of the words. But the ones I was able to search came from a scam-warner's site, where the very same letters, verbatim, were sent by various imposters to try to lure money out of middle aged women to send overseas for men who are doing business projects. I was able to discover this before it got to the point where he asked me for money.

 

We met online about 3 weeks ago and from the get go, it was whirl-wind. The correspondences on the site were in his own words, but once he exchanged email addresses, every email with the exception of one, were copied and pasted, a few things tweaked to buttress what we'd talked about on the phone. And about the phone: he had THE worst connection on his phone for someone who lived less than 15 minutes from where I lived. The worst interference during the call, or the call would go dead and just drop out.

 

He supposedly was bidding on a contract for a job in the philippines and won it and supposedly left immediately to do the job. I never saw him in person; just exchanged emails, texts and phone calls. He has a very distinct accent; claimed he was American/British and he sounds it.

 

Once I discovered the deception, I about lost my mind. I wrote him and asked him what was going on. I would not accept that he was who he was saying he was until he sent me a selfie of him that moment proving that he was the same person in the pictures. I needed to know if he wasn't the man who wrote me those lovely emails because they were all fraudulent emails. He sent me the selfie and it was him.

 

Well, the cheek of this man was that he tried to turn this all around on me, saying that I did not have one atom of trust in him, that he was who he said he was, that what he wrote was the truth, but that he did borrow the words because they conveyed his feelings better than anything he could have written. That is where I don't buy it. He was not want for words to write, but for someone to talk to me about trust after they've engaged in a brazen deception to gain my trust, was beyond the pale. Today, I see that he was back on the dating site early this morning, probably luring another unsuspecting woman.

 

When something appears too good to be true, it usually is. In all online experiences, one must always have their guard up because predators are out there ready to take advantage of people--men and women--who are looking for connection. Do yourselves a huge favor: always, always copy their lines from their emails and run them through google. If it doesn't bring up a Nigerian scam site, it might bring up one of those "get her to fall in love with you" sites. I am quite able, from my own writing abilities, to write in 19th century romantic language, a la Jane Austen, because I love that period of writing and I read a lot of authors of that period. However, not many people are good at this. If you see an email that sounds "Jane Austen-ish" and it sounds just too good to be true, google search it.

 

This guy took off with my imagination and feelings, but thank God, that's all. I still do believe that love can be found online--my sister found her husband on an online site and they'll be married 10 years next year. Thing is: insist upon meeting with the week. If they stall, they are up to no good. Don't be afraid to stand your ground with them, even if it means you hurt their feelings. Someone who is deceiving you should never have their feelings spared for any reason.

 

The best thing that this experience did for me was to finally purge all traces of my ex from my life. All emails, photos--gone. Finally told him to kiss off and blocked him every which way to sunday. I have no desire to undo that. I just want to move forward.

[Nightvision]

This whole online dating thing is a tough game.

I've seen countless profiles copied from facebook or any place you can think of. Google supports searching by image, you just upload an image to search for. I've seen a ton of profiles which turned out to be fakes.

[lavenderdove]

Well, one thing I'd say about this is you shouldn't be expecting ANY kind of romance from someone you just contact online, and if they are floating anything that is 'Jane Austenish' or romantic and you haven't even met, they are most likely insincere. Someone who is sincere will more likely go slower because they are not trying to con you.

 

One thing to keep in mind too is that there are a LOT of married/taken people trolling online for exracurricular sex and lying about their identities. Since what they want is sexual variety, and they aren't really avaiable to date, a lot of them will go straight for high romance in hopes of you inviting them over quicker so they don't have to be out and about with you so much and risk getting caught. They also don't want to invest time and money in you because they don't have it. They will have odd phone behavior and disappear for stretches in time and have outrageous stories like the 'Phillipines' story to explain their absences and why they are not available much or during normal date night times. So this guy may have been married/taken and using a burner phone and searched for some romantic catch phrases to try to woo you into bed faster to get to the sex. They usually bed the women a few times, then disappear and don't give their true names/circumstances/addresses etc.

[lavenderdove]

btw, don't engage with a con man... some of them can be quite dangerous if you find out their scam if they are afraid of being exposed. If you discover a con man, just immediately write them off... don't call and try to argue with them or lecture them, becuase they have no morals and are just interested in the con so you're wasting your time. And never have contact with them again. If they had access to any of your personal information (credit care #s, bank accounts etc.), get those number changed immediately.

 

If they have actually stolen something from you, report them to the police, but otherwise just avoid them like the plague and consider yourself lucky you didn't get anything stolen.

[Batya33]

One way to decrease the risk of this sort of thing is to meet the person in person within a week of being in contact and to limit e-mails to one or two and phone calls to one or two before having a plan -time and place -to meet. Google searches also help but this way you don't waste too much time and con men/women aren't going to be keen on meeting right away in a public place.

[Kendahke]

Thankfully, he never asked for any personal information and I never gave him any. I do know better than that. I've just never dealt with a con person before. They are pretty brazen.

[Janeiac]

Good for you, kendahke, for not allowing yourself to be taken! That self-respect will bring you a respectful, decent man! One thing I noticed in your op that you didn't comment on was that he supposedly lived 15 minutes away from you. For the benefit of others who may read this, I'd like to say that's a huge red flag-- someone who is close by and doesn't want to meet you is someone up to no good.

Well done

[shelty24]

3 weeks talking to someone online you never met? That is just a waste of your time. If you insist on online dating your supposed to treat it like interviews. You need to delete like 99/100 guys that inbox you anyway. Its like trying to find a needle in a haystack looking for someone half decent. So sift through the garbage quickly, line up dates and say NEXT fairly fast if you see any red flags.

 

Also write a list of what your looking for and look for men who appear to tick those boxes. apparently the only catches on a dating site are the ones who seem like a nerd lol but he might surprise you IRL

[Kendahke]

3 weeks talking to someone online you never met? That is just a waste of your time. If you insist on online dating your supposed to treat it like interviews. You need to delete like 99/100 guys that inbox you anyway. Its like trying to find a needle in a haystack looking for someone half decent. So sift through the garbage quickly, line up dates and say NEXT fairly fast if you see any red flags.

 

Also write a list of what your looking for and look for men who appear to tick those boxes. apparently the only catches on a dating site are the ones who seem like a nerd lol but he might surprise you IRL

 

Oh, you flatter me. My inbox has less than 7 emails in it. I keep the effery weeded out on the regular.

 

Were I 30 years younger, I"m sure I'd have a ton of emails to sift through.