METRO Monday, September 14, 2009 D One in 100 residents in the city of Yoshkar-Ola, 800km east of Moscow, is involved in scamming online daters Edited by Lisa Scott features@metroireland.ie Body Matters Online dating scams: You could be one click away from being a victim of heartless internet fraud BY LISA SCOTT How to spot them Most scammers arent geniuses. Here are some clues that they may not be genuine: n They claim to have blonde hair and blues eyes when the picture is dark hair and brown eyes or vice versa. n They immediately want to get off the website and on to instant messaging. n They consistently use webspeak or abbreviations such as u, r, ur, cos and pls. n They immediately start using pet names with you. n They often misspell the cities or towns they claim they are from and are unfamiliar with any of the local landmarks and attractions. n If you ask them a question they dont know, they will be offline for a while. They go and look up the answer then claim they had a phone call or had to go to the bathroom. n They claim it was destiny or fate and you are meant to be together or God brought you to him/her. n Many of them claim to have lost a spouse/child/parent in a horrific car or aeroplane accident. From www.romancescams.org A fter months of chatting online to potential suitors Jessica from London finally met someone she could see a future with. Tall, dark and intelligent, 44-year-old Mark promised he would fly over to visit her so that they could start a new life together he just had to finish building an orphanage in West Africa first. On top of his very attractive credentials, Mark, originally from Ohio in America, was clearly a good Samaritan. So when he told Jessica about a sick child who needed 1,500 for urgent medical treatment, she wired it over immediately. Then he contacted me again and said the child was going to die unless they got another 1,500. I didnt want her death on my conscience so I sent the rest over, she explains. They continued an intense affair, which involved online conversations sometimes lasting up to six hours plus phone calls and regular text messages. But three months after Jessica sent the second instalment, she realised the person she had spoken to candidly about love and sex was actually a gang of Nigerian men who were after her cash. According to the UKs Office of Fair Trading, these scams are rife and on the rise. According to Barb Sluppick, head of the support group romancescams.org, these gangs typically work on different levels. The most basic involves sending out thousands of winks, hugs and e- mails to men and women on dating and social networking sites. If they get a positive response they pass that person on to another scammer who works from scripts. When they finish their shift, the next person steps into their role. Alarm bells started ringing for Jessica when Mark avoided all talk of his life back in the US. He said he owned property in Ohio and New York, so I looked for him on a public US website and he didnt come up, explains the 40-year-old finance expert. On a separate occasion, she received a text from him which was clearly sent by mistake. It read: Tell her we are trying to get online and the connection is slow. Say you just want to talk to her on the phone. But love is blind, right? I can see it now but just didnt suspect it at the time. I guess he learned English from an American teacher, hence the accent, she says. According to experts, there are standard clues that indicate you are dealing with a scammer. They tend to include the use of i not I and the spelling is generally pretty dreadful. In some cases, if you try to end the affair, they will even blackmail you. The victim is often requested to show themselves on webcam, says Sluppick. When a victim performs sexually the film is captured and they then threaten to send copies to family members or your workplace unless they are paid off. Jessica admits Mark asked her to send nude pictures but she declined. In nearly every case, the scammer is a man who takes on both male and female personas. They will just ask their wife or sister to talk on the phone if required, says Sluppick. When a man realises he has been talking to a West African man, not a beautiful woman, it is devastating. Indeed. Jessica is so embarrassed she hasnt even told her best friends. I fell for it and for him. He said he wanted a family with me. He kept saying how kind and generous I was, now I think Im just incredibly stupid. The true cost of cyber love index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html