For regular readers of this blog you will know that I offer a free help and support service to victims of online dating scams, so I tend to notice patterns in scammers stories.

Until recently it has been soldier scams for months but with the amount of publicity that scam has had it appears to be dying down a little now.

The new worrying trend is of coma patients in Nigeria. Whether the coma is brought on by a car accident, mugging or illness it always results in a doctor (yeah right) calling the victim to say he is in a coma in Nigeria and she needs to pay for his medical bills because he doesn’t have medical insurance or any one else they can call.

Of course the victim is only paying the balance because he paid what he can but then ran out of money … cue the request for flight money and BTA to get back home.

I have personally dealt with four victims in the past week who’s “online husband” has been in a coma this month in Nigeria.

In the worst case this involved flying him home to the UK (even though he is a US citizen) and flying an expert in from another country, to treat him in a private hospital in London … the hospital simply doesn’t exist, neither does the expert. The requests for money came through the expert doctor, on her yahoo account. Anything sounding a bit fishy here?!

Now it’s easy to scoff and say you would never fall for such a story but when you are involved with a scammer and hear these terrible pleas for help any good hearted person can be tricked into thinking they are doing the right thing and helping someone they love.

Please people read up on my tips to spot a Nigerian dating scammer and learn about the behaviour patterns of scammers.

Also learn that google, not diamonds, are a girls best friend. Don’t just call the doctors number you are given … it could be anyone on the other end of the phone … google the hospital and call their general enquiries number, then ask to speak to that doctor (if the hospital even exists).

Please note that just because a telephone number has +44 in front of it DOES NOT mean it is in the UK. Scammers use a call forwarding service, originally designed for business people who want their calls to follow them when they travel bu now the perfect way for scammers to suggest they are in the Uk when oin fact they are basking in glorious Nigerian sunshine.

Which genuine hospital in the world doesn’t have a bank account? If you are paying a genuine hospital bill then you can simply transfer the money from your account to the hospitals account … HOSPITALS DO NOT USE WESTERN UNION TO RECEIVE PAYMENT FOR MEDICAL BILLS.

Also, step back and look at the bigger picture.

He went to Nigeria for a work contract but either his employers or he only bought a one ticket … sound realistic? No.

They also didn’t buy medical insurance to go to work in Africa … sound real? No.

After a serious car accident rsulting in a coma, mugging that left him in a coma or finding him dying in the street resulting in a coma of course the Nigerian authorities choose not to call his Embassy/Consulate or his family (because they might worry .. is the usual story) but instead call you because your number was in his text messages and they could see how much you love him. Sound like the real world? No.

If they promise to send you money back they are either

a) Lying

b) Getting another victim to send you money (of course you need to keep some and send the rest to them)

c) Using fraudulent money orders which can land you in trouble with the police and your bank when they recall the money after you have transferred it to the scammer, leaving you responsible for the debt to the bank.

There is only one golden rule when dating someone online … if they ask you for financial help THEY ARE SCAMMING YOU.

Have you received requests for money from someone you met on a dating site but realised it’s a scam before sending money?

Some of the victims stories we are currently receiving are heartbreaking but there is little practical help we can offer to victims after the scam has taken place.

We are currently considering starting a new blog dedicated entirely to educating potential online daters of the dangers and warning signs of scams but before we spend time and money on this project we need to hear from you.

Please leave a comment (or use the “ask a dating question” link at the top of this page) answering these simple questions to help us decide whether such a blog would help people avoid being scammed:

1. Did you do any research online about the dating site you joined before you joined?

2. If you did do research what did you type into your search engine (eg name of dating site+reviews or does “name of dating site” work?).

3. After you joined the dating site did they send any information to you about how scams operate and how to avoid them?

4. Did you read any of the newsletters or admin emails sent by the site, about any topic, or did you just delete/ignore them?

5. Can you think of any delivery method which would have given you information about online dating scams before you joined a dating site or were you just too excited to get started once you made the decision to join a dating site?

We would really appreciate your answers to these questions so we can try to find a way to help people before they are scammed and not just after they have become a victim.

Thanks for any replies we receive. We are currently having a problem with the comments sections which we are trying to fix, so if you try to leave a comment and get a blank page please use the Ask a Dating Question link right at the top of the blog to send your answers by email, because we really need to hear from dating scam victims.

Official looking documents can appear impressive but how many people check if the information these legal documents contain is real?

This post follows on from my last post about online dating scams – First Bank of online dating scam First Private Bank.

Nobody likes to think they are being scammed but we should never take any legal looking document on face value .. no amount of impressive letterhead or stamps makes a document real. Beware of any documents stating they are copy passports, letters from Embassies, banks or legal business contracts.

A new poster on this blog has forwarded a pdf file of a legal contract her scammer sent her for to me to investigate .. be aware I have no legal experience and am not a private investigator but it took me all of 30 seconds to recognise it as a photoshoped fraud.

Let’s have a look at a few obvious errors (I will not publish all the errors or this just gives a head start to the next scammer looking for online dating victims).

An easy and obvious one to check is the bank details noted in the “contract”. They have provided a bank name, location and swift number.

Each bank around the world is issued a swift number, as an identification number. All you have to do is an online search for a swift number list.

These are the bank details provided in this contract:

As you can see the contract states thier bank is ICICI Bank in Manchester UK but the swift number, without even looking it up, is issued to a French bank (circled in red is FR, this is France) … could this be ICICI? Well no, it turns out this swift code belongs to “France …… BNP Paribas S.A. ……. Paris …… BNPA FR PP” .. so the swift code belongs to a bank called BNP Paribas which is registered in Paris, France.

As a quick reference guide you can use the knowledgerush List of SWIFT codes which lists the most popular banks by country but this is not a complete list. If the code you are looking for is not there just google bank swift code list and do some searching.

Now let us look at the wording in the contract – remember this contract is worth over 1 million Euro to the supposed parties concerned:

As I say I have no legal background but let’s imagine the buyer of the “works of art” claims that not all the pieces were delivered so is witholding the final payment. They then go to court with a legal contract as vague as “certain amounts of works of Art” and expect a judge to rule in their favour … let’s all guess how well they would get on in court!

Finally let’s look at the signatures beside the impressive looking seal on the document:

Fist look at the 2 red circles, the fonts are completely different. This would lead me to believe that the top name is real and is from a real legal document but photoshop (or similar program) has been used to add in the scammers name under the bottom signature.

Now look at the green boxes … the signature appears to belong to someone called P Thomas (or similar) but the name underneath is Collins Clemente.  Signatures can be very difficult to read but if you’re in this situation take a look, does it look anything like the name?

Just to show you how easy this is to do .. it took me about 3 minutes in Photoshop to do this (so imagine what I could do in 30 minutes?!):

Online dating scams come in many forms and scanned documents are so often used to gain your trust, so if you receive any such documents (passports, flight ticket, contracts, etc) do not take them at face value … ask yourself are the legal documents real or fakes?

Remember my golden rule – if anyone online asks you for money they are either a scammer or simply not worth knowing.

Someone left a comment on this blog’s article what is an online dating scam giving details of this scam, which I investigated before approving the comment.

The comment reads “He got my information from match.com we started sharing messages , all of them beautiful love letters for almost 2 weeks until he said he travel to africa for a very important bussines , once there he was supposed to travel to my country with his daughter to meet me, it was supposed to happen this week, however just last night contactd me telling me he lost his wallet and had to cancel all credit cards, then at 1 a.m.he called me telling me he needed to pay $4.500 as tax and he did not have any cash. he was asking me to check his bank acccount and wire transfer this amount to my account and then send him the money through western union which i realized was a scam . I did not want to do it , i contacted my bank and explained and then re-checked his bank account and noticed it was a simple website he built probably for people to wire transfer money.”

It was a brilliant call by Sony, who posted the information, and I’m so pleased she didn’t fall for this scam.

Let’s have a look at the scammers bank, First Private Bank of Holland. When I first opened the link to the internet banking login page provided in the comment I didn’t know whether to laugh … it uses the identical layout of my own bank in the UK (Lloydstsb) so was easy for me to recognise.

This is the login page from First Private Bank of Holland

Now look at the logon page from Lloydstsb Bank … look familiar?

Please note that the scammers haven’t even bothered changing the background image of the Tip button.

So what does this scammers website do? Well obviously it makes them money by scamming trusting people. If you click the link on the right of their login page which says “Not registered for Internet Banking?” you will see the following page:

As you can see the page design changes totally and the image capture above only shows a small portion of the page.

You can also see at the top of the page in red test the words “Insufficient filesystem permissions to upload the file specified in FileUpload1 into temporary folder” which is not something you would expect to see on a banks website.

However, were you to fall for this 419 scam and put your details into that web page you would be giving scammers the following information:

Name
Address
Date of Birth
Passport number and expiry date or driving licence number and expiry date
Phone numbers
Occupation and employers details (including your office address and phone number)
Your photo

and then you would have to send them a minimum of 3,000 Euro’s to open your scam bank account, which is a good little earner if you’re a scammer. With all these private details they could do untold damage to you, your finances and use your details to scam other people.

So what was this person hoping to get out of this scam because of course the money would not transfer from their account. Bank transfers generally take a minimum of 3 working days … you would transfer the money from the scam account and then the scammer would need the money today .. you would send the $4,500 of your own money with the confidence of knowing their money was already winging it’s way into your account. Of course by the time they had received and spent your money you would find out that the transfer from their scam account wasn’t coming through and there would be nothing you could do about it.

NEVER NEVER NEVER give out your personal details to anyone you met online and if they talk to you about money cease all communication with that person. Do not trust a website just because someone you met online gave you the details and do not think just because someone gives you secret information, like their passwords, that this makes them trustworthy.

I have reported this scam website to the relevant authorities and hope the website will be removed quickly .. but of course they can just open a new one in about an hour.

People fall for such 419 scams every day and many of the victims are from the online dating world, don’t become a victim and do some research and you can bet the First Private Bank of Holland is not the only scam bank on the internet.

The photo on the left is one of almost a dozen of the same man and I simply downloaded it from stock.xchng.

This man is not a scammer but how easy would it be for me to create a dating profile and place this picture on the profile?

What if we then started chatting online and I sent you the other photo’s of him … would you be convinced the photos are of me? The correct answer is … probably, yes.

A comment was left on my blog post what is an online dating scam leaving a scammers name. Before allowing the comment I checked on the name given and it took all of 2 seconds to recognise the profile as a scammer.

How did I know this? How did I find her profile? All the commenter left was the name of the scammer and which dating website he met her on.

I simply used copy and paste to put her name into google search and it returned just 2 results, one for ChristianSinglesNet and one for Connecting Singles.

This doesn’t sound bad, only two web pages mention that name and both are dating site profiles, nothing wrong with that.

Before we get into her profile I want to say the commenter who was scammed by this person is not a stupid person, like so many he is simply open hearted and trusting, looking for someone special and reading profiles with rose tinted glasses and a lack of knowledge.

He should have read Behaviour patterns of online dating scammers but like most victims you don’t google dating scammers until it’s too late.

So back to the job at hand, I then clicked on the first profile link for this “woman” (who knows could be a man?) and this is what I found:

Laila        Member Name: Laila2g9 (1)

African American / Black, 31,

Single – Never Married  (2)

San Antonio, Texas, United States

Personal Details
Gender:     Female
Age:     31 (9-Apr-1978)
Race:     African American / Black
Marital Status:     Single – Never Married
Children:     0
Religion:     Christian
Drinking:     Non-alcoholic beverages only
Smoking:     Never
Food:     American
Occupation:    Banking / Finance (4)
Education:     High school
Languages:
Interests:     Arts / Crafts
Cooking
Dancing
Music – Christian / Gospel
Music – Pop / R&B
Religion
Eye Color:     Brown
Hair Color:     Brown
Body Type:     Athletic / Fit
Height:     5’06″ – (167 cm)

0 photos in album view

General Information
My name is Laila Amidu,I am 31years Old,I am Single (five
years ago) (2), Fair, dark black hair, brown eyes, 5′ 6″, 121
lbs..,L(3)ong Hair and a healthy Lady. I am self-sufficient,
Beautiful, happy, secure, self-confident, psychologically
aware, emotionally and financially secure. and working as a
Waiter In a Local Restaurant (4) ,i email me i will tell u more (5)
my long name is my id and here is my email address
./Laila2g9 /at /yahoo /dot /com/ am Living with my
grandMom.i will tell u more about me (5)

Appearance
My name is Laila Amidu,I am 31years Old,I am Single (five
years ago), Fair, dark black hair, brown eyes, 5′ 6″, 121
lbs..,Long Hair and a healthy Lady. I am self-sufficient,
Beautiful, happy, secure, self-confident, psychologically
aware, emotionally and financially secure. and working as a
Waiter In a Local Restaurant,i email me i will tell u more
my long name is my id and here is my email address
./Laila2g9 /at /yahoo /dot /com/ am Living with my
grandMom.i will tell u more about me

Looking for
i will tell u when we meet onlinei will tell u when (6) we meet
onlinei will tell u when we meet onlinei will tell u when we
meet onlinei will tell u when we meet onlinei will tell u
when we meet onlinei will tell u when we meet onlinei will
tell u when we meet onlinei will tell u when we meet onlinei
will tell u when we meet online

The parts in bold are where we need to look. Look at the numbers I have inserted and let’s go through it one by one.

1. Laila2g9 – google the username. Not just this one, any profile you look at, scammers tend to use the same username on all the sites they join and Laila2g9 is no exception.

Clicking the first link (Matchmaker dating site) we see that Laila still claims to be black African but her photo is a dark haired white skinned lady (bit of a give away), it also looks like a models photo so I would run it through a reverse image search engine. She has also moved from San Antonio to Adrian. On other sites she moves to Massachusetts and even to Ireland, all in the same year because her age never changes.

Also pick out a sentence and google it in quote marks .. I chose a sentence which I knew wasn’t written by the person copying and pasting the profile information … like this “happy, secure, self-confident, psychologically aware, emotionally and financially secure” (the quote marks make google look for the exact same phrase). What I found was a profile for ralleylove on romancescam … please people do a little searching before being scammed.

Sound familiar?

My name is Regina,i am 32 years Old,I am Single (five years ago), Black, dark black hair, brown eyes, 5′ 9″, 141 lbs.,Long Hair and a healthy Lady. I am self-sufficient, Beautiful, happy, secure, self-confident, psychologically aware, emotionally and financially secure. and working as a Waiter In a Local Resturant,am Living with my Mom and Dad in a Logging house

I stopped clicking links at 34 profiles with this same paragraph, they simply changed the name and age (some profiles are for men removing references to lady) … there are actually 16 pages of search results with this same paragraph on various profiles and every one is a scammer.

2. States single never married but then says she has been single for 5 years! People who are seriously looking for a relationship take time to write their profile (good way to find the players too) so this sort of mistake should be taken seriously.

3. Quick quiz … why do scammers so often have capital letters in the middle of sentences?  Answer ….. translation software.

It Looks like this, With capital Letters in very Strange Places.

This is something I found out through online discussions with my husband. His first language is Arabic so of course he has to look up some words in a translation tool. Each single word he translates starts with a capital letter.

Try it, go to google translate, translate some basic single words from English to Arabic and back to English. This is what you will see:

Hair
Eyes
Lady

See how they all begin with capital letters … watch out for it on profiles, capitals in the middle of sentences = translation = English not their first language.

4. She works in the banking/finance sector but also as a waiter (not waitress) in a local restaurant .. the global recession must have hit bankers harder than we thought or she can’t remember where she works.

So this lady doesn’t know whether she is single or divorced and is confused about where she works … come on people they are huge red flags.

5. Writing sentences that make no sense within the paragraph. This is simply due to copy and paste.  Remember scammers are working in a foreign language so when they are sent a script to copy and paste they have no idea where to start or stop, so they just copy and paste what they see … would you know where the end of a sentence written in Chinese is?

6. Repeating the same thing over and over again Repeating the same thing over and over again Repeating the same thing over and over again Repeating the same thing over and over again Repeating the same thing over and over again – about 90% of the scammers profiles I reject on my dating website have at least one paragraph like this.

If you are chatting to anyone you met online please read 5 tips to spot a nigerian dating scammer, it’s better to give a little offence to a genuine person than get caught by a dating scammer.

Nigerian and Russian scammers have long used the old “I’m a civil engineer working in Nigeria or Russia …. oops I’ve been robbed/got sick/got a great business deal and need a financial loan” trick to scam money out of trusting people they meet online.

The serviceman scam stoops to an even deeper low, playing on people’s patriotism, sympathies and trust.

When it began the soldier scam usually said they were a soldier (from US or UK) serving in Iraq but as public popularity for the Iraq war dwindled Afghanistan became the war zone of choice.

This is how the scam works:

After registering with an online dating site the scammer uploads a photo of a soldier they have downloaded from a facebook page or army recruiting website and then copies and pastes a great profile writeup from a script.

They immediately send a short but friendly message to numerous women on the site introducing themselves and asking about the woman.

You reply, saying a little about yourself and asking about him.

When they respond they will give very little away about themselves, again responding to what you have told them and asking questions about you. They will also give an email or msn address where you can contact them offsite.

NB … the more you tell a stranger about yourself, particularly personal stories, the closer you feel to them because there is a bond of trust … scammers use this against you and the more you tell the more trust you show.

In their second or third email they will tell you they are a US or UK soldier serving in Afghanistan or Iraq … they say they hope that doesn’t scare you … and they have one child they are totally devoted to.

The story then varies depending on which script the scammer is working from …. either they are a widower or divorced …. sometimes their ex/deceased wife was a Nigerian, if so the child may have gone to stay with his ex/deceased wife’s mother in Nigeria while he is away at war, or else the child is with his own mother in UK or US while they are in Afghanistan (this depends wether they have contacts in the UK or US to channel the money through).

After they feel they have your trust and you are emotionally hooked (usually after declarations of love or commitment to a long term relationship) they will start to mention how worried they are because they’ve heard their child is sick. This can either be a gradual process or they will receive a call with the heartbreaking news while they are talking to you online or by phone.

Then the first request to borrow money will arrive to pay for emergency medical care for their child … obviously they can’t send money from Afghanistan, it’s a war zone but will pay you back as soon as they get home.

If you send money the requests will keep coming as their imaginary child gets sicker and the medical bills mount up … oh and don’t forget his dear old mother who has to stay in a hotel next to the hospital.

This scam is quite successful because you have a patriotic soldier putting life and limb on the line each day. One who has gone through heartbreak and tough times emotionally (showing his vulnerable side) and of course one that is totally committed to loving and caring for you for the rest of your life … they are exactly what you have been looking for, a real life knight in shining armour.

A professional woman in the UK was scammed out of £10,000 by this very type of scam …. please don’t fall for it.

My apologies to the genuine US soldier in the photo used in this article, I simply copied it from google images to show how easy it is and I hope the soldier in the picture (and his family) would understand my intention is simply to keep women safe by explaining how the soldier scam works.

Almost every successful online dating scam follows a set pattern of behaviour.

Once scammers find something that works they will use it until people get wise to the scam and then move on to something new.

Unfortunately, as dating scams deal with our most basic instinct (the desire to love and be loved) this old trick is not running it’s course, it still works every day.

Here is the basic behavior pattern of an internet dating scammer, the psychology behind each step and the red flags to look for … learn to read the signs.

The Scammers Approach

They will send a short introductory message as soon as you or they join the site. They will often approach people 10 to 15 years older than they say they are.

They will very quickly (usually in the first one or two messages) want to move off the site and on to yahoo, msn or mobile texting.

If you agree to move off the dating site within 2 days they will remove their profile from that site and inform you they have done this because they know they have found the one they were looking for.

They will explain that English is not their first language so they are slow at typing (in actual fact they take so long to respond because they are also chatting to 4 other potential victims at the same time).

Red flag:

They want to get you off the dating site as quickly as possible .. ask yourself why?

Scammers Cover Story

This is just one cover story but it will give you an idea of how creative they are.

They will begin by telling you they are a business man or woman and are either currently doing contract work  in an African country or they are in Europe at the moment but will be travelling to Africa on business soon.

They will usually say they are French, Belgian, Dutch, Italian or whatever because when you speak on the phone it can be difficult to tell what their accent is.

Together

They will chat to you daily and within a week they will tell you they are in love with you, they have been waiting for you all their life, they have dreamed of meeting someone like you and they can’t wait for you to be together.

They are perfect for you, almost too good to be true. Everything they tell you sounds like they read your profile and messages then invented their entire persona just for you (there’s a hint in there).

They will quickly talk of visiting you with a view to moving your relationship to the physical level and will talk of marriage.

Red Flag:

Too much, too soon, never met and nobody is that perfect for you. It’s one of the joys of relationships, we have to compromise and if someone is just “perfect” then you should smell a rat.

First Request For Money

This will usually come after 10 to 14 days of chatting daily and take one of four forms. The request will be in an amount from 1000 to 20000 UK pounds or US dollars (although sometimes much more), they will sound so embarrassed to have to ask you BUT:

1. A medical emergency
2. Victim of a crime.
3. Visa money and flight money to come to be with you.
4. A business deal is slipping through their fingers.

The medical emergency will take the form of needing to see a doctor because they are sick or must pay a hospital bill for either them or a close family member. They will say it’s only a loan, someone owes them money and as soon as they get it they will send it right back to you.

The crime will take the form of their wallet/passport/laptop/luggage has been stolen and they are stuck in Africa and need to get home (this may be coupled with the need to pay the hospital bill after the attack).

Of course they have to travel a few hundred miles to apply for the visa, then travel back for the interview and that’s expensive .. the fact that our embassies now accept initial online applications should warn you here.  They also need flight money to come to see you, someone owes them money which they could use but they won’t get it back for a few weeks and they just can’t wait that long to be with you. As soon as they get their money back they will send you what they owe you. Others just say they can’t afford it and if you are to be together then can you pay for their flight.

A great deal came up and they have paid 200,000 plus for heavy machinery/gold/precious stones/etc but they are short 20,000. When they are back home they can sell it for more than double what they are paying for it. Their bank doesn’t have a branch over there so he/she can’t get the remaining money wired to them .. can you just help him/her out and they’ll split the profits with you when they get back and sell their purchases.

Please note that in any of these scenario’s if you say you can’t afford the amount they are asking for they will simply ask for less and try to get the remaining amount elsewhere … and yet they had to ask you, a total stranger, for the money.

Any money you send needs to be sent through Western Union.

Red Flags:

1. A business person that travels frequently and goes to Africa without medical insurance .. pull the other one.
2. If they’re a victim of crime why haven’t they gone to their Embassy for help, that’s what they’re there for and they WILL help in such circumstances.
3. They are so desperate to meet you but never suggest you go to meet them when they get back to their home country, just send them money and they’ll come to you.
4. A business person that can’t get to a bank there but was allowed to wander through customs with 200,000 in cash, which they just happened to be carrying in case they fancied a bite to eat .. I don’t think so!!
5. If the words Western Union and internet dating crop up in the same sentence run a mile.

If you Don’t Send Money

If you sound even slightly hesitant about sending money or say you simply can’t afford to, they will suddenly go into fits of remorse for even asking you .. you will get a tyrade of what a dreadful person they are and they will never forgive themselves for asking .. blah blah blah.

Once they are sure you feel really guilty and sorry for them, usually coupled with you saying you really want to help them but … they will start to ask for money again. Maybe you could just lend them a small part of what they need? Do you have a car you could sell?

Documentational Proof

In order to build trust and reassure you that you are not being scammed they will email you documentation to prove they are telling the truth and how much they need.

This may take the form of:

1. A hospital bill and letter from a doctor explaining they can’t release his/her passport until the bill is paid.
2. A police report detailing the crime and the value of what was stolen.
3. A letter from a travel agent explaining the flight has been booked and they await x number of pounds/dollars to pay for the flight or even a copy of the flight booking confirmation.
4. A receipt from the business they are buying from detailing their purchase and the amount outstanding. This will often state that if the outstanding amount is not paid he/she will lose the money already paid.

Red Flags:

All of these documents are written in English, even the police report .. how convenient, that means you can read them.

I could produce any of these documents in about 10 minutes with my laptop and photoshop.

You can book a flight online and print off the booking confirmation straight away, then cancel the booking. This is such an effective tool though psychologically because you “see” the flight they are coming on, so it can’t be a con … can it?

It’s all proof of nothing other than their ability to use a computer.

Second Request for Money

If you send any money for a flight it will quickly be followed by a second request.

The most popular of these is the Basic Travel Allowance (BTA).

This is where the psychology of the scam gets you in two ways.

Firstly it gets you emotionally, you desperately want to meet this perfect love of your life or you wouldn’t have sent the flight money (usually 2-3000). They sound so utterly disappointed when they tell you they went to get their visa and the embassy/government/travel agent explained they need BTA money in cash, 800-1000 pounds or dollars, which has to be shown at the departure desk.

Secondly you may begin to smell a rat but you’ve already sent a lot of money, so your brain will be desperately trying to convince you that you haven’t just been scammed (even though in your heart you know you have).

You may decide to cut your losses and break contact but many victims of scams try to give them the benefit of the doubt in the hopes of this person really being the love they are looking for and in the hope they haven’t just become the latest victim of a dating scammer.

Red Flags:

There is no such thing as BTA. Before sending any money for visa/passport/travel requirements check the internet, look at your embassy website and establish what is actually needed and what is just an attempt to part you from your hard earned cash.

I know this all makes it sound very “any idiot could work it out” and in the cold light of day they could but these people are very good at what they do and are very convincing.

Please learn the behaviour patterns of online dating scammers so you don’t become a victim.

Also known as the Personal Travel Allowance, Travellers Allowance Fee, Travellers Assistance Fund, Travellers Assurance Fund and numerous other forms of “I have to have wodges of your cash or they won’t let me fly”.

Let’s get this over with now … THERE IS NO SUCH THING any more, anywhere, it’s an online dating scam.

First of all look at the wording Basic Travel ALLOWANCE, not basic travel requirement.

In the same way as we now have cigarette and alcohol allowances (ie the maximum amount you can take into/out of a country) the BTA used to be the maximum amount of local currency that could be exchanged and taken out of a country.

Why?

If poorer nations just allowed everyone to take as much cash as they liked out of their country the economy would be dead in the water in a week.

Therefore, poorer countries introduced the BTA to limit the amount of local currency that exited their country. This was scrapped 3-4 decades ago and replaced with other currency allowances but it gives the scammers an excellent legitimate sounding tool to get your money.

Something vital to understand is that third world countries don’t care who leaves or if they ever come back, the people that care are the country the person is travelling to.

This means that during the visa application process the applicant must prove to the visa section of the country they are visiting that they, or their sponsor, is financially able to pay for travel and expenses.

Very occasionally passport control at their destination country may randomly ask a traveller how much cash they have (this is usually when someone from a third world country arrives for a two week stay with 10 suitcases) and 50-100 pounds sterling/dollars or equivalent is more than adequate.

There is NO requirement, anywhere, for the person to show their government/travel agency/airline that they have 1000 pounds/dollars in cash … it’s a spinoff from the Nigerian 419 dating scam and a very effective one.

The usual amount asked for in terms of BTA is between 800 and 3000 pounds or dollars.

Let’s put this into context … on the Nigerian section of the Expat Blog we see:

the cost of living in Nigeria… a bit of an odd question as 90% of the population lives on less than a dollar a day.

So if you send them 1000 pounds  (without calculating the flight money etc) you have just paid them 8 years basic living allowance.

Bet you wish someone would give you 8 years of salary free for just making a couple of phone calls and sending a few emails!!

Not hitting home yet?

Let’s try something more visual. At todays exchange rate 1000 British pounds is 241,127.33 NGN (nigerian currency).

Now go to Nigeria Car Finder and in the second hand car section leave everything as any and set the price to 250000

My search showed that your hard earned cash could buy a scammer:

1992 Honda, Accord … takes just 1 successful scam (flight and BTA money)
1993 190e mercedes, 1993 model … takes just 1 successful scam (flight +BTA)
2000 Mercedes-Benz, 200-Series … takes just 3 successful scams (flight and BTA)

Now then, do YOU drive a mercedes?

What about a home in a well-to-do area?

“Real estate for sale: 3 bedroom bungalow in cornerstone estate Price: 7 million”

So they just have to scam 10 people in the UK out of 3000 pounds for flight/BTA/hospital etc and bingo, they can live the high life without a mortgage … can you?

I’m sorry to be so brutal about this but you MUST understand that sending these people money is the equivalent of you having a half decent win on the lottery.

To make matters worse if you send them just 1 pound or dollar they will never leave you alone, you will have to change your online details, your home phone number, your mobile number and perhaps even move house to get away from them.

If you are reading this because you think you might be being scammed (requests for large sums of money to be sent through Western Union for BTA or flights) then I almost guarantee you are.

If you have already sent money then don’t feel ashamed, they prey on the humans most basic instinct, to love and be loved.

However, cease all contact immediately … don’t decide they might just be genuine so I’ll give them a couple of days, if you are reading this your head is sending you alarm signals, listen to them.

Conclusion: There is no such thing as Basic Travel Allowance or any other terms which suggest such a thing, the BTA is a dating scam.

(please note the photo of the boys used in this blog post are not known dating scammers, it is simply a photo of boys in Africa)

It’s time to think again.

We have answered the question “what is an online dating scammer” and looked at the No 1 internet dating scam, the 419 scam.

But as online daters have become smarter at recognising scammers, scammers have been evolving at the same pace.

While beginners still use the old basic tricks, the more advanced scammers are a lot more subtle.

One question to ask yourself is “does the online dating profile photo look too good to be true?”

If it does then it probably is, they simply steal them from modelling agency websites.

However, the better scammers are now wise to this .. here’s an illustration:

I bet you thought they were going to be of women!! Scammers will try anything to get cash out of both men and women.

Clearly the picture at the top is of a male model and has been stolen from a model agency website.

So not only are you being scammed but the poor model is having his work stolen and used for illegal purposes.

The picture at the bottom is clearly not of a male model. This poor man obviously put his holiday photos on something like facebook or flickr and is now being touted round the internet by a dating scammer.

The ip address for two profiles with the above pictures displayed both originate in Nigeria.

Here’s one for the men .. just so you don’t feel left out.

This is Karla Spice, an adult film star. There is a great deal more to this photo but I shall leave you to find it for yourself.

Scammers will use photo’s like this so your large brain switches off and your small brain takes over.

Her portfolio of photo’s has been on online dating profiles all over the world and men are still falling for it.

Another way for scammers to get hold of photo’s to use on dating profiles is to capture images from daters they are chatting to online. If you are chatting to a scammer using webcam they simply take a still picture of you while you are online.

In 5 tips to spot a Nigerian dating scammer I told you how to trace a photo back to it’s online origin using a reverse image search engine.

If you start communicating with someone on an online dating site then always check their photo through a reverse image search engine or database.

As the photo’s of men above shows, it’s not only the too good to be true pictures that scammers use on online dating profiles.

Before you start playing hot and frisky or declaring love to someone from an online dating site do a little research to find out if they are a Nigerian dating scammer.

First of all make sure you understand what the 419 internet dating scam is and how it works.

Remember these scammers are everywhere, not just in major online dating sites but also on forums and in chatrooms about every topic there is.

Even very small niche dating websites can occasionally let one slip through the net depending on how experienced the scammer is.

Now let’s start investigating this too good to be true, dying to get married to you person.

1. Trace the Dating Profile Photo

Is the dating profile photo just too good to be true, does it look like a model? If so it probably is.

The photo I have used on this post is one a Nigerian scammer stole from a model agency website and was using on online dating profiles.

However more sophisticated Nigerian scammers are now using very ordinary holiday snaps they find around the internet.

So either copy the images from their profile if the website hasn’t blocked the copy feature or ask the person to email you their photo’s .. now go to TinEye.com and upload the photo’s.

Tineye is a reverse image search engine and will find the image online even if it has been altered.

This will tell you where the original photo was uploaded, eg a model agency website or someones photo album.

Romancescam also has a photo database of known scammers. Just go to Scam Digger upload the photo(s) and it will compare them to the ones in their database.

2. Check Email Adresses

The Nigerian scammers favourite email and chat provider by far is Yahoo, I would say that over 90% of the scam profiles I reject from my dating site are using yahoo email addresses.

Look out for addresses with 4u, 4luv, 4life, 4love, 4ever at the end .. eg lillian4u@yahoo.com, it’s no guarantee but does ring alarm bells.

3. Track the IP Address

An IP address will give you the location of the web server they are using, if it goes back to Nigeria or Senegal for example then you might want to rethink your budding relationship.

IP addresses can be routed through certain websites so you would see a UK or US ip address but you can track back to the original.

This excellent blog post will take you step by step through tracking the original IP address of an email sender in GMail, Yahoo and Outlook.

Once you find the ip address just go to a free ip locator website and paste it in the search box.

This then lists the country, region and city of the server the sender is using .. clever isn’t it.

4. Search Profile Information

If the person you are chatting to has a well written profile, with a good standard of English grammar then copy and paste a couple of phrases and do a google search.

I’ve just tried it with one of todays scammers profiles on my dating site and the phrases originate on a US blogs about me page.

5. Ask to Chat on Webcam

Be persistent about this. These scammers will send you up to 30 photo’s of ‘themselves’ (they are often all photos of the same model taken from an agency website) but a webcam will show you who you are talking to.

Of course they won’t have a webcam, even if you send them money to buy one they will reel off excuse after excuse as to why it won’t work but that is what you want.

The more they refuse to show themselves the more suspicious you will get and the aim here is to protect you from these people.