ROMANCE SCAM STRIKES WITH MATCH.COM AGAIN

Valley News Live - KVLY/KXJB - Fargo/Grand Forks

(U.S.A.) She says she gave up everything for love, only to find out it was all a lie. It's what investigators call the romance scam.

Carolyn Benningfield says she had the all-American life - an Air Force husband, two sons, and a middle class home. But after her husband died three years ago, she felt lonely.

"I was looking for a good Christian man and I went on Match.com," said Benningfield.

And after a few months and a few misses, Benningfield thought she found her match - a widow from another town who shared her Catholic faith.

"I thought my dreams had come true."

The two hit it off early this year, chatting online every day. But soon the conversation turned to money, when the man said he'd lost his luggage on a business trip to Ecuador.

"He asked me if I could loan him $1,000."

So she did. But as time went on the requests grew larger, he convinced Carolyn to invest thousands in his oil company.  She sent dozens of transfers to different accounts he claimed were used by his company, $40,000 to a bank in New Zealand, 3,000 each to people in Russia and Ecuador.

She never met the man and now believes he was using a false identity.

"The banks tried to warn me but I decided not to believe what they said because in my heart I felt it was true."

In the end, Benningfield gave the scammer all she had, a total of almost $800,000. She's also facing a potential tax lien on her home for emptying out her 401K.  Benningfield reported the fraud to Police, but since it involved international money transfers she had to take the case to the FBI.

Benningfield says she still keeps in touch with the man, in hopes that he might want to give some of the money back.

original article found here

Match.com Can't Screen for Sex Offenders

By Benjamin Radford

One of the world's top dating websites, Match.com, announced that it would begin checking its members against a national sex offender registry. The announcement was made about a week after a class-action lawsuit was filed against the company by two women who claim men they met through the service sexually harassed them.

Whether an attempt to ward off future lawsuits or merely a publicity stunt, the measure is nearly worthless and in fact may do more harm than good by fostering a false sense of security. There are several obvious flaws with the plan.

The first is that users on social networking and matchmaking websites typically do not have their identities verified. Thus anyone (including convicted sex offenders ) can post whatever name they wish to use on the site and easily avoid triggering a match on registries.

Even if Match.com members' names were somehow verified, names are very common. A match with a name on a sex offender registry would also require a matching address to be sure it's the same person. Anyone can rent a post office box (or use a friend's mailing address) to easily avoid triggering an alert.

Second, even if the information provided to Match.com was completely accurate, it may not match what's on the nation's sex offender registries, which are notoriously unreliable. A 2010 study of Vermont's sex offender registry found that half of the entries sampled contained significant mistakes and wrong information, including two people who should not have been listed. Audits in other states, including Georgia and Texas, found that the registry information for offenders was often wrong, incomplete and outdated.

Third, statistics show that relatively few assaults are committed by convicted sex offenders. That is, a given person (adult or child) is far more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone who is not listed on any sex offender registry than a convicted sex offender. The vast majority of physical and sexual assaults are committed by friends, family and other loved ones, not a recently met stranger hiding a sex offense conviction. This is one of the fundamental flaws of Megan's Laws and other offender notification measures: They distract attention and resources away from the greater threat.

Even Match.com's president, Mandy Ginsberg, acknowledged that the new measures "remain highly flawed." The rules of safe dating have not changed in decades: Meet in a public place, tell a friend where you're going and don't give out personal information too early.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of six books.

original article here

Another reason to NEVER USE ONLINE DATING!

Man Rapes Girl, then Sets Up Facebook with Her Name

(U.S.A.) Travis Davis is facing stalking charges after he allegedly set up a Facebook account using the name of an ex-girlfriend he raped in Ohio to contact a more recent ex in Pennsylvania. He tried to force the woman he contacted to come back to him by threatening to distribute a secretly filmed sex tape.

The 23-year-old Indiana man was arrested Aug. 15 outside the second ex-girlfriend's home in Delmont, about 25 miles east of Pittsburgh, after someone called 911 to report a man sleeping in a suspicious vehicle outside, police said.

He had a .45-caliber pistol, three magazines of bullets and a box cutter, and the car had a stolen Pennsylvania license plate taped over the Indiana plate on his car, police said.

Davis had created a Facebook profile in the name of another ex-girlfriend, a woman he had raped in Preble County, Ohio, and used it to contact the Pennsylvania woman and her current boyfriend's family, police said.

A week before his arrest, police contend Davis sent the Pennsylvania woman a video of him having sex with her when both still lived in Indiana. The woman "never knew that this video was filmed in the first place and obviously never gave consent to send the video to anyone," a criminal complaint said.

Davis threatened in an e-mail to "send the video to everyone if she did not return to Indiana for him," a criminal complaint said.

A few days later, the Pennsylvania woman received a friend request from the Facebook page Davis created using the identity of his Ohio rape victim. Davis - pretending to be the Ohio woman - threatened to send the video to the Pennsylvania woman's current boyfriend if she did not move to Indiana, the complaint said.

Davis, still posing as the woman he raped, then messaged the Pennsylvania woman and told her he would keep the video a secret if she agreed to a "sexy video chat" with her ex-boyfriend over the Internet. Police say the Pennsylvania woman consented to the chat Aug. 12.

The next day, Davis called the woman claiming that his Facebook alter ego had sent him the video and "advised her, in sum and substance, that it may be in her best interest to return to Indiana," the complaint said.

On Aug. 14, nude images of the Pennsylvania woman were sent from the Facebook page to the woman and her boyfriend's mother, police said. Authorities said they have contacted Davis' accuser in Ohio, who confirmed the Facebook page wasn't hers.

Davis pleaded not guilty and faces charges of violating a protection from abuse order and stalking.

Davis remains in jail on $75,000 bail and his lawyer says he intends to prove his innocence.

original article here

Charged with Assault AND Facebook Stalking!

A woman who accused her ex-boyfriend of assaulting her, also told the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court yesterday that he was also stalking her on Facebook.

The accused pleaded not guilty to assault and also denied the cyber-stalking allegations.

The allegations are that the two, who were once in a relationship, had an argument after the complainant disconnected the accused man's cellular service, which was in her name. She alleged that during a confrontation, the accused hit her.

She also told the court that the accused was sending her constant text messages and emails and had also created several fictitious Facebook accounts, which he used to send her 'friend requests'.

The accused, however, said the complainant was upset because he decided to end the relationship, and had even warned him that he would pay for "messing with a vindictive bitch." He said he did not create the Facebook accounts and suggested that the complainant was the type who would let her friends do it just to get him in trouble.

Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey had harsh words for both parties. She warned the complainant against using her emotions and plotting revenge and also told the accused to leave her alone, both in reality and virtually.

original article here

Cybersex Chat Spirals Out of Control

Married 46-Year-Old Who Posed as Iraq-Bound Marine Says Online Relationship 'Became More Real to Me Than Real Life'

By JIM AVILA, GEOFF MARTZ and JOANNE NAPOLITANO

In the whirl of cyberspace, it was just one chance encounter...

"How r u doing"

"Hey tall, how r u"

A beautiful 18-year-old girl meets a handsome Iraq-bound Marine in a chat room. Who would have thought it would lead to a two-year affair, a love triangle and murder?

It would turn out that all was not quite as it seemed. That good-looking young Marine was actually balding 46-year old Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two. Montgomery said he was stuck in a dead-end job in Buffalo, N.Y., that was "slowly sucking the life out of me." And, he said, he and his wife were drifting apart.

Montgomery began spending a lot of time on the Internet. "I found it easier to talk to the people online than I could to my own wife," he told "20/20."

To this day, Montgomery can't quite explain what he was doing in a teen chat room on the popular game site "Pogo," in May 2005. But when a girl named "Talhotblond" started instant-messaging him, he decided to pretend he was 18 too.

"I kept thinking, well, we're never going to meet. ... I'll just play the game with her," he said.

Before long, the flirtation became a romance.

Talhotblond's instant messages revealed that her real name was Jessi, a softball-playing high school senior from West Virginia. She sent Montgomery photos that lived up to her screen name ... and then some.

"There were some ... very provocative poses," he said.

As they got to know each other, Montgomery asked for other photos: He wanted to see what she looked like at her graduation, or at that baseball game -- and Jessi would send them off to him. But in return, she wanted to see what he looked like too; so he sent her his photo from Marine boot camp.

The picture was 30 years out of date. Montgomery's screen name was Marinesniper, a nostalgic harkening back to the six years he spent in the military as a young man.

Today, he hints darkly of covert ops and dark deeds best unmentioned, but U.S. Marine records obtained by "20/20" show that although he qualified as a sharpshooter, he never trained as a sniper or saw action.

But for Jessi, he invented a younger, stronger, more virile version of himself, called "Tommy." "He was my height, 6 feet tall, had bright red hair," said Montgomery, "big shoulders, muscles and all that."

Cyberchat Consumes 'Marinesniper'
Instant messages recovered from his computer show that the online relationship began to consume Montgomery. He told "20/20" that this relationship "became more real to me than real life."

The feeling seemed to be mutual. Jessi and "Tommy" exchanged gifts, phone calls and love letters.

"I love you always and forever, Tommy," wrote Jessi.

"I have never felt this way," Montgomery responded.

Cyberspace Gets Complicated
In December 2005, the married 46-year old Tom Montgomery found himself proposing to Jessi, an 18-year old girl he had never actually met.

Jessi wrote back, "Yes, I will marry you Tommy.& Won't be long till it's Jessica Blair Montgomery."

Montgomery said he finally realized he was in way over his head. "I was panicking. ...The lies kept getting more and more."

He decided that his 18-year-old alter-ego -- now supposedly stationed in Iraq -- would have to die.

"I was going to kill him off. You know, say he was out on a routine patrol. ... But I couldn't do it," he said.

By that point, Montgomery said the relationship was more than a flirtation. "There was virtual sex going on in there between her and Tommy," he said.

While Montgomery said the virtual sex made him "feel kind of dirty," he was in too deep to sever ties with her.

"If I was smart, I would've just ended it, but it was like a, a drug that I needed every day," he said.

Montgomery seemed to be losing touch with reality. He wrote a note to himself: "On January 2, 2006 Tom Montgomery (46 years old) ceases to exist and is replaced by a 18-year old battle-scarred marine ... He is moving to West Virginia to be with the love of his life."

Online Fantasy World Crashes
Fate finally took a hand. In March 2006, Montgomery told "20/20" one of his daughters was using his computer when Jessi happened to instant message him. Montgomery's wife, alerted by her daughter, found a trove of love letters, photos and mementos from Jessi, including a pair of red panties. She sent Jessi a photo of her family and a letter.

"Let me introduce you to these people," she wrote. "The man in the center is Tom, my husband since 1989. ... He is 46 years old."

Montgomery said Jessi was horrified, and broke off the relationship immediately. "She sends me a text message and says, she hates me ... you should be put in jail for this," he told "20/20."

But Jessi also e-mails one of Montgomery's co-workers, a 22-year-old, good looking, part-time machinist named Brian Barrett, to see if it's really true.

Brian's screen name is "Beefcake" and as he consoled Jessi online, she seemed to find a better fit with him -- and perhaps a way to strike back at the combat Marine who wasn't.

Before long, Jessi was sending Brian her photos and the two had become a cyberitem. Marinesniper became consumed with jealousy -- and he wasn't about to take it lying down.

Marinesniper: Brian will pay in blood.

original article here

FaceCrook

A drug baron on the run from US justice is facing up to 105 years in jail after being traced in Britain through Facebook.

Emmanuel Ganpot, 36, was convicted in 2003 of hiring two “mules” to carry cocaine and 3,500 ecstasy tablets worth £22,000.

Cops in Largo, Florida, arrested him in his car, which held a huge stash of narcotics and $22,000 in used bills.

A cohort in the vehicle got 25 years and Ganpot faced a minimum 15-year term.

But before he could be sentenced, he skipped his million-dollar bail and fled to the UK, where his French mum lived.

He changed his name by deed poll to 'Neo Masuro', obtained a British passport, and set up home in Oxted, Surrey. (sounds like Ed Hicks, Yidwithlid and Dan Jacoby)

There, the “charming Yank” with a drawling accent became “Manny” the barman in the high street’s George Inn.

He also coached a football team, drummed in a band and worked with disabled kids.

But his downfall came when he set up Facebook and Myspace pages in his new name — knocking six years off his age and posting pictures of himself on a Spanish beach. (sounds like Cyberpath, Felon - Ed Hicks!)

Prosecutors back in Florida had given state prosecutor Bill Burgess a three-year mission to track him down.

And the ex-US Army special forces soldier trawled the internet sites of Ganpot’s friends, noticing them referring to a secretive pal called Neo.

Eventually he came across a photo of Neo blowing a kiss and realised his true identity.

Database searches traced Ganpot to Oxted, where British cops arrested him and put him on a plane to the States.

Florida judge Deanna Farnell announced on Wednesday that she would sentence him on May 13 for the original offences plus law evasion — giving a maximum term of 105 years.

Back at the George, barmaid Susie Pocock, 25, said: “The whole thing is crazy. He always used to come in here with a big group of friends.

“Everyone liked him. It just doesn’t add up, it’s incredible.”

Pal Daniel McCarthy, 26, said: “It hasn’t sunk in. Nobody had a clue Neo wasn’t Neo.”

Burgess said: “Finding Ganpot was like finding a needle in a haystack. Then I realised he was still in touch with his pals.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE