Heather is a 42 year old American lady.Divorced with two
children,she decided to try online dating to possibly get a new
partner.
She signed up with one of the popular dating sites and set up a
profile.The anonymity and security of online dating appealed to
her and she hoped it would work out for her.
In a matter of days, she was contacted by a man who also
claimed to be looking for a love relationship.The man was
handsome,also divorced and in his mid-forties. He claimed to be
an engineer living in the United States, but was sent on an
assignment by his company to Nigeria.
They began to chat and exchange mails, and soon began a
relationship online.He sent flowers to her from time to time,
sent poems everday, called her up twice a day. Heather felt
that she had finally found the man of her dreams. Surely,this
was the perfect relationship that she had wanted since her
divorce. Here was a man who was caring and who showed it. She
readily agreed to his proposal
when he called her over the
phone and asked her to marry him. They began to make plans to
get married as soon as he returned to the United States.
Heather felt all was going on well with their plans until he
made a distress call.He had been involved in a road accident
and had been hospitalized. Could she help out with some money
to pay the bills? Well,she did help. A sequence of events
followed afterwards. Weeks later, she discovered that the man
she had fallen in love with was not the real person she had
thought he was.She had just been taken by the newest form of
online scams that is just showing up--the romance or dating
scam.
She was heartbroken.She had lost thousands of dollars to this
man.She was behind on her mortgage and was in debt to the bank.
But painful as the experience was,it could not be compared to
the emotional pain that she had to go through.
It would take many months before she would get over the whole
experience, which she described as a
nightmare. Heather is not
the only one that is a victim of this new form of scam.Many
thousands of people online are losing millions of dollars
monthly to these scams. But due to the secretive nature of the
internet, most people that have been scammed this way are
either too embarassed or ashamed to talk about their
experience. In a particular finding, 145 men and women reported
that they lost over $1 million in two months in 2005. In that
same finding, thousands of people refused to disclose any
information about their losses.
The worst aspect of these scams has been the emotional pains
the victims have had to go through.
Many of the victims I talked with reported that it took them
many months before they could get back to their normal life.
A lady told me that she cried for many nights after she
realized that she had been scammed. She had thought she had the
ideal lover,and had become so emotionally attached to him.
Realizing that it was all a lie was devastating to
her. The
fact that she had been in deep love with a fake person was what
pained her the most.
This is the same experience as many of the victims I related
with have had.The effects of the scams have had so much of a
devastating effect on them all. Medical doctors,
lawyers,paralegals and other professionals have been known to
lose money to these scams just as housewives, students, factory
workers and other low-income earners have. The scams are no
respecter of status or race. Not even religious people have
been spared from this growing menace.
Till this moment, thousands of people are out there trying to
get over these scams. But even as those who have been scammed
are trying to get on with their lives, many more thousands are
being set up for a scam right now.
Online dating has come to stay with us all, and many people
have found true love through this avenue. Online dating has
produced many successful love stories. It is a medium that if
properly used, with the
right education, can be a means of
bringing love into the lives of many.
However, it is apparent that it is also increasingly being used
for the wrong purposes. Given the high success rate of the scams
however, the best way to deal with them is to educate yourself
about them.
You need to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Knowing the methods that the scammers use will help you not to
fall for their antics. You will be able to know what to do to
protect yourself and still be able to date succesfully. The
more educated you are, the more you can prevent the scams from
happening to you.
About The Author
Alan Prince actually went behind the scenes
to research these scams.His findings from months of interaction with
both the scammers and their victims are available at
http://www.elovedeceptions.com.
goinggreat@elovedeceptions.com
