Beware of Scammers on Tinder

Have you grown tired of snuggling with your cat on Saturday nights while your friends are out enjoying couples bliss? 

Then you’ve likely been on the hunt for a relationship. This can sometimes become a long and frustrating process. 

If you’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places and decided to start an online search, beware. Romance scams have been cropping up again lately, and unsuspecting lonely hearts are being bilked out of thousands of dollars. The most recent version of this scam involves the mobile dating app Tinder. 

Unfortunately, Tinder’s popularity has made it a magnet for scammers. The Better Business Bureau released a warning for consumers, alerting them to scammers who are using Tinder to spread malware or obtain money. 

Instant attraction 
The scam usually starts with you browsing for profiles, and then receiving an immediate response from a match as soon as you swipe right to communicate interest. After a lengthy messaging session (the fraudster is trying to get you buttered up so you’ll let your guard down), your potential suitor will then suggest texting instead of continuing to communicate through Tinder. 

Trouble in paradise 
And that’s when the trouble begins. Your new match may start telling you about a new service or product that you should try. The Better Business Bureau says the scammer will usually send a link with referral codes. This is done so that the spammer will receive payment for referring new customers. Then, you’ll be asked to download an app, but once you click on the link that was provided, your phone is infected with malware. Furthermore, some scammers will request personal information such as your address, pretending that they need this information so they can send you a romantic gift. 

The Better Business Bureau gives these tips for spotting a Tinder Scam: 

1. You receive a lighting-fast response 
If you are a little suspicious of a fast response from a Tinder suitor, your instincts may be accurate. The Better Business Bureau says that some of the Tinder profiles are not real, but are in fact spam bots. If you get a message immediately after you are matched, proceed with caution. 

2. The scammer pressures you to communicate outside of Tinder 
Another red flag is if the new guy or gal fires off multiple messages and then tries to get you off Tinder as soon as possible. The spammer may suggest text or chat. The BBB says it is common for Tinder users to move on to a text conversation but that a spammer will make this suggestion almost right away. 

3. You don’t have their attention 
Be even more suspicious if the answers to your questions don’t make sense. This could be a sign that answers have been automated. The BBB suggests asking a few questions to see if the responses add up. If you get crazy answers, it’s time to shut the conversation down. 

4. Their photo is too good to be true 

Be leery of Tinder users who post glamour shots. Unfortunately, that toned hottie drenched in baby oil may not be the real deal. So if you’re drooling over your match’s photo, be prepared for disappointment. While we hope that’s not the case and you find your love connection, don’t be surprised if you end up with more than you bargained for — and not in a good way. 

original article here

How to find the sender of an anonymous email message

 

by Michael Roberts


 Whether it be done for right or wrong reasons, anonymous emailing is a part of life today. But that anonymity is not absolute if you as a receiver, have good reason to identify the sender, and have the patience to follow through.

Sometimes it can be very difficult, if not impossible to identify the sender of the message if they took careful steps to obfuscate their identity, such as using a proxy server. But even then it is not impossible, now team have been able to circumvent the countermeasures taken by criminals, and by civil wrongdoers, in order to positively identify them in the full light of day.

We have published a few case studies that show the practical results of our work in this respect:
http://www.rexxfield.com/case-studies.php

If you have fallen victim to threats, harassment or otherwise offensive behavior by someone through anonymous email, we can help you. 

Contact us by completing this form and we will respond and give you some idea of the options available to you.

original article found here

MANTI TE'O - SMELLS 'CATFISH'-Y

(U.S.A.) Manti Te'o, the US college footballer revealed to have been conducting a relationship with a fake online girlfiend, has denied that he was involved in the hoax.

In his first interview since the revelations, the Notre Dame linebacker told the sports network ESPN that there was "no way" he could have been involved in prepetrating the scam.

There had been speculation that Te'o was involved in the hoax: the "girlfriend" was revealed to have died hours shortly after the death of his grandmother. Despite the apparent double tragedy, Te'o went on to play the game of his life when Notre Dame beat Michigan State 20-3.

It has been suggested that he was involved in creating the story in order to perpetrate a media-friendly myth to assist his Heisman Trophy candidacy.

But in a two-and-a-half hour interview with ESPN, conducted off camera, Te'o said he was the victim of the hoax: "When they hear the facts they'll know. They'll know there is no way I could be a part of this."

The comments were Te'o's first public remarks since Deadspin.com reported that his girlfriend not only did not die but, in fact, never existed. Notre Dame and Te'o insist he was the victim of a cruel joke.

According to a report of the interview on ESPN's website, it appears that Te'o concocted an elaborate story to hide the fact that he had not physically met the woman, known as Lennay Kekua. He lied to his father about the affair, who then told reporters that the pair had met. Te'o now says he never met the woman.

On the occasions they talked on video chat online, the woman never activated her camera. Te'o admitted to meeting Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a man believed to be behind the hoax, but said he did not know of the scam.

"I even knew that it was crazy that I was with somebody that I didn't meet," he told ESPN. "And that alone people find out that this girl who died I was so invested in, and I didn't meet her as well."

Before Friday night, Te'o's only statement was to declare his embarassment at the Deadspin revelations. "This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating." 


ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOUND HERE

FOR HOW RELATIONSHIPS LIKE THIS ARE ACCOMPLISHED BY THE SCAMMER - Click Here 


SIMILAR STORY? Click Here

Online Dating: Buyer Beware!

by Cassandra Pybus

(AUS) Even reputable internet dating sites are not immune from scammers trying to to take advantage of vulnerable people.

Last summer I went to a wedding celebration that was an unexpected delight, not the least for the bride who met her new husband on an internet dating site. Having just come to the painful terminus of a three-year affair, I could not suppress my wistful envy at her glowing happiness. The champagne flowed freely and several friends became bold enough to suggest that I should try internet dating. After all, what was to lose?

I failed to disclose that after my divorce in 2007, when I was living in the United States, I had signed up with the dating website e-harmony, but found shopping for intimacy such a humiliating experience that I aborted the process by changing my email address. I knew that it was easy to reactivate my membership - I needed to pay some money, revise my geographic location and supply a valid email. So I did as my friends had urged. What was to lose?

At first there was a flurry of e-harmony emails proposing likely matches for me, but when none of those men chose to contact me, silence followed. I had given the whole business away when, out of the blue, e-harmony sent me a very encouraging request for contact from Alan from Artarmon, a widower of 60. His profile said he was a consulting engineer, who appeared to be intelligent and well read, in addition to being a handsome man, if his photograph was to be trusted.

I felt a quickening excitement: I was lonely and sad and here was a successful, interesting man who liked what he saw in me. I stared at his email for a long time, thinking that someone with my life experiences was an unlikely choice for Alan from Artarmon and the message seemed rather generic, as if he had sent it to lots of women fishing to see who would respond.

I took a deep breath and cautiously typed a response to express my surprise and ask if he really meant to address me in particular. Expecting that would be the end of it, I went to bed at midnight, determined to put it out of my mind, which I never managed to do.

Next day I was doubly surprised to find Alan from Artarmon had replied in haste to assure me that he was much taken with my profile. He said he really liked that I was independent and was not tied to one place and promised to write at length after he had finished at work.

Blow me down, later that day there was another email telling me all about himself. His real name was Charles Carroll - his middle name was Alan - and he was a drilling engineer consultant with a postgraduate degree from the University of Queensland, who travelled overseas a lot and was currently working for a company in Reading, England. His wife had died a few years ago and there was an adolescent son in school in Malaysia.

It was a really long email, suggesting he had plenty of time to kill in his hotel room in Reading. He provided a lot of personal detail about his family background, his personal take on ethical behaviour and cultural interests that were highly compatible with my own.

Charles was clearly keen to impress upon me that he was the real deal, and not some flaky pervert; he even provided his personal email address so that we could communicate directly, rather than pay e-harmony for the privilege.

It was all very reassuring and I indulged myself in a little flurry of anticipation as I read and reread his message. But nagging at me was the bit about his son: wasn't he a bit too old to have a child in school, and why would he send his son to school in Malaysia?

Google can usually solve all such conundrums, but my cunning interrogation of the web was unable to find the consultant drilling engineer called Charles Carroll. It was only when his name was matched with a phrase from his message that Google found him, or rather located a copy of an email message from him that was almost identical to the one I had received, with a few variations such as a postgraduate degree from the University of Virginia. This email was sent to a woman living in America through a different internet dating site and was now posted on a website called romancescams.com.

A few hours of compulsive web searching revealed that the photograph I had seen on his profile was stolen from a male model named John Daniel, and that this image, paired with many different aliases, had been posted hundreds of times on internet dating sites, as well as Facebook.

In reality, the promising widower from Artarmon in Sydney was a room of electronically savvy youth in Lagos, Nigeria, who could just as readily be a woman named Emma, as circumstances required. The common scenario was that Charles, or Emma, worked for an international construction company, or an aid agency, and in the course of developing an intense online romance would be deployed in Africa, where a life-threatening drama would require a major injection of money.

The revulsion and shame I experienced at having been hooked, if not actually reeled in, by this scam was much worse than humiliation; I was swept by a wave of nausea.

But why have such a visceral reaction? Like anyone who uses email I am continually the target of scammers, but this was much more insidious because it was communicated to me by a respectable business that traded on being empathetic and trustworthy.

A letter from Mobuto's widow asking me to launder her husband's ill-gotten millions does not land in my inbox as legitimate communication from my credit union, nor does a begging letter from a young man orphaned by a war in Africa get forwarded by Save the Children.

Moreover, the mercenary or compassionate impulses that are triggered by these familiar scams come a very poor second to the powerful desire for intimate connection. This is what makes the online romance business a superb conduit for criminal activity.

According to the FBI, the romance scam is the work of very smart and very dangerous people who have connections to terrorism and who rake in billions of dollars with the tacit support of the online dating industry.

In Australia, online romance scams cheated men and women out of about $23 million last year, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, whose website carries the story of one man who paid his life savings of $200,000 to the orphanage that Emma claimed to have established in Africa. With that kind of money in play, scammers will take considerable time to cultivate strong feelings of intimacy and trust.

People who think themselves in love are highly vulnerable and will throw all caution to the wind to make romance tangible. It makes this a particularly cruel form of theft; one that leaves its victims doubly traumatised. I felt nauseous after the simple exchange of emails, so what was it like for a woman so deeply in love with Charles that when urgent medical treatments were needed to save his life she was willing to exhaust her savings and then take an extra mortgage on her house. Having paid a total of $95,000, she was suddenly unable to make contact. She lost her heart and she lost her house as well.

In February the ACCC issued best-practice guidelines for internet dating sites, advising they post prominent warnings and institute internal vetting procedures.

Yet six months later, a very respectable dating site actually directed me to a notorious scammer whose bogus identity should have been detected by digital security to identify the common heuristics of scam emails and the originating IP address.

There are still no prominent warnings on the home page of e-harmony or other reputable dating sites like RSVP that are known to be thoroughly infiltrated by scammers.

You would have to search deep into the dating advice section of these sites to stumble across advice that they might be used by unscrupulous people for criminal purposes. In such advice the onus of protection is placed squarely on you rather than the business that is charging money for every hopeful communication they encourage you to make.

In my particular case, e-harmony was very prompt to respond to my outraged complaint: they removed me from the site, as I requested, and refunded my money. They also sent a computer-generated message, which doubtless went to numerous other women, to say that they had removed Alan from Artarmon from their service and that ''privacy laws prohibit us from disclosing the specific reasons for our decision''.

I doubt that privacy laws pertain to an international criminal cartel operating out of Nigeria, and it's more likely that the lucrative internet dating business is reluctant to confess to a business model that regularly exposes its customers to serious criminal fraud. Despite the intervention of the ACCC, when it comes to shopping for intimacy, buyer beware.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOUND HERE

Divorced Accountant Scammed by Online Dating Sites

by Antonia Hoyle

After her marriage broke down, Jenny Beard knew finding love again wouldn’t be easy. Not only was she 42 and the sole carer of her six-year-old son Will, but her demanding career as an accountant left her with precious little time to socialise.

Nonetheless, she didn’t want to be alone forever, so when she heard about an internet dating site for single parents like herself, she joined without a second thought, Jenny told Channel 4 News in a programme.

Describing her interests as ‘going to the theatre and restaurants, enjoying country walks as long as they feature a tea shop’, she was hopeful she would meet mature, like-minded men who understood the difficulties of bringing up a child alone.

What she didn’t expect was to find herself posted as a ‘hot date’ on cheesy lads’ magazine sites, and bombarded by spam emails from people who didn’t even exist — or if they did, had anything but a country walk in mind. Jenny Beard was shocked to find her pictures, submitted to a singe-parents dating site, on sleazy lads¿ mag sites

Jenny Beard was shocked to find her pictures, submitted to a singe-parents dating site, on sleazy lads' mag site. Over the course of the four years Jenny has been on the site, not one of the men she met has been a member of justsingleparents.com where she originally posted her profile. Not one of them had even heard of it. Alarmingly, half were not parents at all and only one had a child the same age as her son.

Worse still, her picture and profile have been plastered across tawdry dating websites belonging to ‘lads mags’ such as Nuts and Loaded that are more associated with scantily-clad girls in semi-pornographic poses than professional, middle-aged women like Jenny.

She is just one victim in an extraordinary dating scam exposed by two industry whistle-blowers.

Unbeknown to Jenny, justsingleparents.com is run by a parent company called Global Personals — a legitimate company most members never will have heard of, but which passes members’ details freely between the 7,500 sites it owns, meaning they are inundated with unwanted and inappropriate advances.

The company has also created ‘fake’ profiles, by lifting photographs off the internet, and ordering staff to flirt with unsuspecting members, outrageously flattering them into renewing their subscriptions.

Disturbingly, their deception has proved an unqualified success. Global Personals — whose headquarters are in Windsor, Berkshire — makes £40 m a year, employs 130 staff and is believed to take a 40 per cent cut of every membership subscription, with the remainder going to the spin-off company.

But it is at the expense of women like Jenny, now 46, who is astounded by the way in which she has been duped.

‘Internet dating seemed the best way of meeting people,’ she says. ‘But I’m shocked by how many sites I’ve ended up on. It’s upsetting and annoying. I’m nobody’s idea of a Nuts hot date. It’s the last place you would expect to find me and a waste of time and money. I’m not surprised they’re making up people. I’ve received no end of emails from men who say they like my smile, but clearly haven’t seen my profile. I won’t be renewing my subscription.’

Certainly, Jenny’s experience serves as a cautionary tale to those tempted by the increasingly popular world of online romance, said to be worth £2 billion globally. She first started internet dating in September 2008, eight months after her seven-year marriage ended.

‘I have a serious job. My options for meeting men are limited,’ she says. ‘This seemed the best way.’

She began by joining a site called Plenty of Fish, but, within weeks she realised it was unsuitable.‘It’s hard to say without sounding snobby but I’m a professional person with a degree,’ she explains. ‘It was very good for meeting dustmen, builders and mechanics who are perfectly nice but not right for me. Apart from anything else, it’s free and attracts people with less money. I thought finding a paid service would be more appropriate.’

So she researched online and came across justsingleparents.com. With membership costing £20 a month and members all purportedly having experienced single parenthood, she was more likely to meet like-minded people, she reasoned.

‘I wanted to meet people with children because they understand that anyone else in my life won’t be my top priority,’ she says.

Her son Will, who’s now ten, also was keen to see his mum with someone nice ‘to look after her’

But what Jenny didn’t realise was that when she joined justsingleparents.com that she would be exposed on websites she’d previously never heard of.

Worryingly, the practice, while misleading, is perfectly legal. It is called ‘white-labelling’ and happens when a product produced by one company, such as Global Personals, is rebranded by other companies — in this case dating websites.

Who knew? Internet dating amongst those aged 50-plus has risen by 40 per cent in the last year

Also, in a bid to boost their revenue, the company was specifically employing staff whose sole job it was to set up and run fake profiles on the dating sites, to keep members interested. Within weeks, Jenny got her first warning signal: She’d begun emailing a fellow single parent from her area and the pair had swapped phone numbers:

‘I texted him and said “it’s Jenny from Just Single Parents” and he replied “what?”’ she recalls. ‘He’d never heard of the agency. I was put on the back foot and so flummoxed I didn’t contact him again.’ It was another member, Jenny recalls, who explained that their details were passed around various dating sites: ‘I felt put out and rather stupid,’ she says.

Nonetheless, as the months passed, she was sent three emails a day from unlikely suitors, who ranged in age from 22 to 73. ‘I deleted them before reading,’ she says. ‘I can’t remember any being particularly crude, but maybe they were and I never saw them.’  Jenny says she quickly suspected some of the identities were fake. ‘I know I got emails that weren’t from real people,’ she told Channel 4 News. ‘You’d ask a man a question, such as how many children he had, and would get a reply tell you how happy they are they’ve met you.’

She adds: ‘You don’t realise to start with that these companies they have “ice breaker” messages saying “I like your profile” or “you’ve got a lovely smile” that are sent to all the women in East Sussex between the ages of 35 and 55. You’d reply and wouldn’t hear back. After a while you realise a lot of the messages you get are sent to hundreds of people, not just you.’

Yet Jenny — fuelled by hope that she would meet someone genuine — carried on using the site. At times, however, she became so exasperated with the process that she cancelled her membership.

‘Cancelling was a faff — you couldn’t do it online and would have to call someone in working hours,’ says Jenny, who spent hundreds of pounds on subscription fees.  ‘I remember one email I got that persuaded me to re-join was from a good-looking, wealthy single father who ran his own building business,’ says Jenny. ‘Part of me suspected it was too good to be true, but I replied anyway.’ And, surprise surprise, she never heard back.

Over the course of four years, she met up with just eight men in person. Not one of them was from justsingleparents.com, half didn’t have children at all.

‘I only met most of them once, for a drink,’ she says. ‘One, a store manager, had joined a website called Old Flirt. He was my age but, had I known the site he was on, I would have hauled him out on the grounds that it was a ridiculous name. ‘Another was a bus driver. There were two retired people. They came from geographical and rock music dating sites. One came from a site called Derbyshire Singles. One didn’t even know I had a son, which was the whole point. It made me think my profile might have been edited. I was perplexed.’

As Jenny had suspected, she was not the only one being duped — and not the most vulnerable.

Channel 4 News investigators spoke to whistle-blower Ryan Pitcher, who joined the company in 2008 and a second, unnamed, employee, who detailed the suspicious way in which they were recruited, when they were warned they were not to discuss their duties with family and friends.

Finding fake profiles was a secretive and calculated process, with the team scouring social networking sites and stealing people’s photos to use on their fake profiles: ‘You’d take Helga from Iceland and make her into Helen from Manchester and write a profile,’ says Ryan. ‘You’d use her features and invent a whole new person.’

The role of the fake profiles — or ‘pseudos’ as they were called by employees — was to email members flirtatious messages to entice them into continuing their subscriptions. Up to 400 messages an hour were sent by the team who frequently coerced their victims into intimate text conversations.  ‘You’re talking about thousands of messages which means millions of pounds in subscription fees,’ says Ryan. It seems they were targeted specifically at the sites’ most vulnerable members.

‘A lot of the people on the site aren’t the most attractive people,’ he admits. ‘If they’re not getting replies from real people after a month, they’re going to sign off. The pseudo team could string along a girl or guy for up to 24 months. It is all about money, all about greed. With fake profiles you can get 50 per cent more revenue, sometimes even more.’

If the member wanted to pursue a relationship with a pseudo, or even have a telephone conversation, they would be brushed off before being replaced by another pseudo.  ‘It’s all about stringing them along on tenterhooks with that pretence that eventually they’ll meet up or swap telephone numbers,’ says Ryan.  ‘But as soon as that comes into play you move on. There were loads of cop-outs you could use. Most people were talking to more than one pseudo. Some people were only talking to fake people.’

All of which is incredibly unpalatable. Ryan admits the deception started to trouble his conscience:

‘After a while you’d see the same old men and women; widows, for example, who wanted to find love. You’re just stringing them along to get money out of their pensions. That did play on my mind.’

Meanwhile, his bosses grew richer and ever omnipresent in the dating industry. They have a database of 2.2 million people — every one of whom is believed to be accessible across its network of sites.

It is the sheer variety of websites Jenny has been made available to that shocked her the most when Channel 4 contacted her a fortnight ago to tell her their findings — and which finally persuaded her to cancel her subscription.


A spokesman for Global Personals told the Mail: ‘When members subscribe to one of our sites, they are advised in the terms and conditions that their details will be made available to members of different sites on the relevant shared database.  ‘Our job is to get our members in front of as many other members as possible. Members on any of these sites can apply filters to ensure they are not contacted by anyone they don’t want to be. Global Personals was one of the first online dating companies to stop using pseudo profiles. ’

But Jenny doesn’t believe sufficient warning was given. ‘It should be made a lot clearer how many sites you’re getting in to,’ she says. ‘It’s upsetting and annoying that you don’t know where your picture is going to end up. Clearly someone who is reading Nuts is not going to be interested in me, just as I am not going to be interested in them. You should be able to opt out.’

Trading Standards in Windsor say they have ‘on-going dealings’ with Global Personals regarding their alleged use of fake profiles. Yet the company remains unrepentant.

They told the Mail: ‘Global Personals was one of the first online dating companies to stop using pseudo profiles. Global Personals scaled down pseudo profiling throughout 2009 and all pseudo profiles were removed by February 2010.’

For Jenny, it is too little too late. Still single, she has cancelled her subscription with justsingleparents.com and will be more cautious about internet dating in future.

‘You’ve got to be emotionally strong as you’re set up for an enormous amount of disappointment,’ she says, adding: ‘I don’t know how I’ll meet a man. The odds are stacked against it.’ 

 original article found here

Click here to learn more about the Class Action against Match.com

Teen Internet Love Gone Wrong - He's a She

By Helen Weathers

(U.K.) Fourteen-year-old Emily Marabella’s heart skipped a beat when she chanced upon the profile of ‘Mr Gorgeous’ on an internet social-networking site. With his long fringe sweeping out from under a beanie hat, chiselled jaw and pretty-boy looks, he was the very image of her teen idol, Justin Bieber.

Never in her wildest dreams did Emily think someone as adorable as ‘Mr Gorgeous’ would be attracted to a shy, self-conscious girl like her. So, when he replied to her first message, directing her to a YouTube clip of him singing the Bruno Mars’ song ‘Just the Way You Are’, Emily was thrilled.

It marked the start of an eight-month, long-distance chatroom romance, during which the handsome teenager was soon telling Emily she was perfect, with beautiful eyes and hair.

His internet messages saying ‘I love you’ and ‘I can’t stop thinking about you’ were music to the ears of a girl who fretted about her weight and suffered from the chronic skin condition, eczema.

Emily, now 15, says: ‘I’d never been in a proper relationship or done well with boys, so to be told I was really nice looking made me feel so happy. When he said he loved me, I wanted to scream it from the rooftops.’

Indeed, Emily did tell everyone, proudly showing pictures of her new boyfriend — who told her his name was Matt — to her family and friends at school in her home town of Market Harborough in Leicestershire.

Only Matt didn’t exist. To Emily’s acute distress and embarrassment, her dream boyfriend turned out to be girl called Chloe; a fact she discovered only after they’d met up for the first time in October 2010.

By then Emily had held hands with ‘Matt’, hugged ‘him’ and allowed her new ‘boyfriend’ to briefly kiss her. It is now 18 months since the day all Emily’s dreams were ‘shattered’ in what she describes as ‘the worst thing that has ever happened to me’. She has tried to put it behind her, but the memories flooded back last week following the conviction of Gemma Barker, another girl who pretended to be a boy on internet sites.

In contrast, Emily’s ‘boyfriend’ Matt — in reality a 16-year-old girl from Surrey — has never been charged, and this week was still to be found on certain internet networking sites, including Twitter, pretending to be a boy.

When Emily’s parents called the police, they were told no offence had been committed as no sexual assault had taken place. It is not against the law for a girl to dress as a boy, or indeed to create a false internet profile. ‘It is amazing that there is no law to stop people from creating a fake identity in this way and then using it to deceive someone else,’ says Emily’s mother Julia, 48, a personal trainer.

‘At which point can the police prosecute? Do they have to wait for more inappropriate behaviour? This has absolutely shattered my daughter emotionally.’

Emily and her mother have agreed to speak out to warn other girls of the dangers of being taken in by fake internet profiles, even when parents do everything in their power to protect their children from harm.

For even Emily’s cautious parents were initially fooled. Not content to judge their daughter’s relationship with ‘Matt’ on pictures alone, Emily’s parents permitted the internet friendship only after first checking that Emily’s crush wasn’t actually some predatory older man posing as a teenager.

They spoke to ‘him’ on the phone, saw ‘him’ on their laptop webcam and vetted his messages for sexual content, but found nothing untoward. As Julia says, it seemed like a ‘harmless penpal relationship’ and seeing their daughter blossom under the intense light of ‘Matt’s’ attention was a delight to witness.

Emily says: ‘I had a very low opinion of myself at the time, so for Matt to find me attractive was amazing. I told all my friends at school and showed them his picture. Matt told me, “one day I want to marry you”. It was so perfect.’

After five months chatting online, the teenagers arranged to meet up at Market Harborough train station during the school summer holidays in 2010. Julia says: ‘I was fine with her meeting Matt, provided we met him, too.’

Emily arrived at the station with two friends for safety, and Julia planned to meet them all once ‘Matt’ had arrived. He never showed up.

‘I felt like a fool,’ says Emily, who has two older brothers, Oliver, 22, and Edward, 20. I was so angry, but when I contacted him afterwards he told me he had a phobia of trains and was scared. I was so head over heels in love with Matt, I would have believed anything he said.’

Emily and Matt arranged to meet again during the October half-term. This time Emily’s father Ian, 47, a driver, took her to the station to meet Matt, who was dropped off by car by his grandmother and auntie. Matt certainly looked like a typical teenage boy in his checked shirt and baggy jeans, but Ian was suspicious.

Julia recalls: ‘Ian phoned me and said, “I need you to get here as quickly as possible, there’s something not quite right”. I rushed to the station in a panic to find Emily in the car and Matt sitting on the pavement with his head in his hands.

‘Ian came over to me and said: “I think it’s a girl, it’s not a boy” and I said: “What on earth makes you think that?” and he told me Matt’s auntie had said: “I hope she behaves herself,” before driving off. I knelt down beside Matt, and said: “Ian’s got a bit of a problem, I know this is really embarrassing, but can you tell me what your name is?”. He said “Matt”, and when I asked why his auntie had said “she”, Matt explained he had a twin sister and his auntie kept getting them confused. I kept looking at Matt and it was really hard to tell. I thought: “You look like a boy”. In the car we kept asking questions and that’s when Matt told us his sister Chloe was his twin. Stupid as it sounds, I believed him. Emily didn’t have any suspicions at all, and was so embarrassed.’

That afternoon, Julia and Ian took Emily, her friend and Matt to the park to walk the family’s dogs and, at one point, the three teenagers ran off together. It was then, away from the watchful eyes of parents, that Emily says Matt kissed her. But by then, Julia and Ian were becoming more convinced that Matt really was a girl.

‘It was a windy day,’ says Julia. ‘And as the wind blew the heavy fringe away from his face, I thought: “I can definitely see a girl in you now,”’ says Julia. ‘But what could we do? We couldn’t just abandon her or turf her out because she was only 15 and her gran wasn’t due to pick her up until 6pm. Even though I was upset, angry, annoyed, I felt responsible for her.

‘I didn’t want Matt alone with Emily because my daughter was in total denial and I didn’t want any more kissing, so we watched them like hawks. Heaven knows what might have happened if Emily had met Matt alone. I would have been absolutely mortified if there had been any touching.’

At 6pm, the Marabellas drove Matt back to the station to be collected by his grandmother and auntie. 'I’ve never seen anyone run away so quickly, the car hadn’t even had time to stop. Matt was desperate to get away from us,’ says Julia. ‘I ran after Matt because I was angry and upset and I felt desperately sorry for Emily that he hadn’t said goodbye, so before they could all zoom off, I stopped their car. ‘The elderly aunt and grandma were sitting there and they asked: “Has she behaved herself?” I was so dumbfounded. I just didn’t know what to say because they clearly didn’t have a clue. Then, they turned round and said: “I hope you have been a good girl, Chloe,” and I felt physically sick and incredibly foolish. I was too shocked to say anything. I went back to our car and said: “Oh my God, Ian, Emily, it’s a definitely a girl,” and that’s when Emily’s world fell apart.’

Emily continues: ‘I burst into tears, saying: “No, it can’t be,” because I still loved this person. I just didn’t want to believe it, because you can’t go straight from loving someone to hating them. I couldn’t think of life without this person.’

That evening, Emily messaged Matt, demanding answers.

‘I told Matt: “I know you are a girl,” but Matt denied it and still insisted she was a boy and that Chloe was her twin sister,’ says Emily, who immediately ceased all contact. I felt I’d lost absolutely everything. No one could understand how I felt. It’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever been through in my life. Even now, it still haunts me.’

As well as contacting the police, Julia reported the case to various internet sites in the hope of blocking “Matt’s” profile, but because no criminal offence has been committed, there was apparently nothing that could be done to stop it.

‘There may be no offence being committed, but to me the deception is still there,’ says Julia. ‘Just because “Matt” is a teenage girl and isn’t a 40-year-old man doesn’t mean it’s not wrong. I have no idea what is going on in this girl’s head, but she must need some form of psychological help if she has to pretend to be a boy. Since this has happened Emily’s whole attitude, her behaviour, her whole perception of boys, her trust, have all been changed. She became introverted and depressed, saying: “No one will find me attractive now. I can only get a girl, not a boy.” Her eczema flared up so badly, her school thought she was self-harming because she’d scratched her skin raw.’ Emily adds: ‘The day Matt became Chloe, I changed from the nicest person to someone who just doesn’t care any more.’

When the Mail spoke to Chloe/Matt’s 76-year-old grandmother, with whom the teenager lives, she said Chloe had been deeply affected by her grandfather’s death in 2009, which had triggered an episode of deep depression.

She added that Chloe’s parents split up when she was three, and that her granddaughter came to live with her when Chloe’s mother couldn’t cope with the child’s challenging behaviour.

‘Since all this happened, Chloe is being treated for depression and is now doing well again,’ said the grandmother, who admits she is not computer literate and therefore had no idea that Chloe was — and still is — posing on internet chatrooms as a boy.

The day after we spoke to Chloe’s grandmother the Facebook profile for “Matt” was taken down, although it remained on another site.

‘She’s a good girl and behaving herself now. We’ve explained to her that she will get into trouble with the police if she continues to pretend to be someone else, which I think she understands. She was very close to her grandfather, and when he died she became depressed and just didn’t want to be herself any more. She just wanted to be someone else.’

■ Some names have been changed for legal reasons.

original article here

Men Show Up Wanting Sex After 'Ex Posted Fake Craigslist ads'

By Mark Duell

(U.S.A.) A jilted boyfriend allegedly placed a series of fake adverts on Craigslist that appeared to be from his pregnant ex-girlfriend asking men for sex.

Andre Flom, 31, of Portland, Oregon, put up ads with her number and address - and up to 20 men would arrive at her home for sex, police said.

Postings under the name of Catlin Moser, 29, said ‘hit me up - I’m super horny’ and that she wanted ‘guys to take turns giving it to me good’.

The posts also asked people to remove a Japanese maple tree and a play structure from her garden, reported the Smoking Gun website.

‘He was posting my name, my phone number and my address on Craigslist for really obscene sex parties,’ Ms Moser told Fox affiliate KPTV. I was having men showing up at my house all hours of the night.'

He even allegedly posted the contact details of Ms Moser’s mother, who said she would get around 100 obscene text messages in five minutes. ‘The kinds of things that were being said were pretty obscene,’ the mother told CBS affiliate KVAL. ‘He'd set up times for them to come over.’

CONTENT OF THREE ADS ON CRAIGLIST

'What's up, my name's Catlin and I’m very real, looking for a sexy guy to come give me what I need, hit me up - I'm super horny'

'Having a party tonight at my house: encourage single guys to come through, lots of beer and single women, here is a recent pic of me, my name's Catlin, let's go boys'

'Hey, so I'm at home bored, lookin for a guy, or guys to take turns givin it to me good'

It began in October after Flom was convicted of domestic violence and more than 35 adverts were posted on the listings website, police said. Flom was convicted of strangling Ms Moser, who has a two-year-old son, last autumn and she won a restraining order against him.

One of the ads included her address, saying: ‘I’m very real, looking for a sexy guy to come give me what I need, hit me up - I’m super horny’. Another said she was ‘sitting at home bored’ wanting men to ‘give it to me good’ and was inviting people who ‘want to get a little dirty’.

Investigators subpoenaed Craigslist to give them records that showed nearly all of the fake adverts came from the same network location.

In a twist, investigators traced this to Flom’s next-door neighbour. But it turned out the man had an unsecured wireless router in his house. Police raided Flom’s home on Tuesday and took away a computer, modem and mobile phones, reported the Smoking Gun.

Flom was charged with computer crime and identity theft and is being held in Multnomah County jail in lieu of posting a $30,000 bond.

original article here

Charged with Online Harassment

(U.S.A.) Bridgeport man once again faces charges for stalking a woman in Fairfield, and this time police said he used a fake name and Facebook and Twitter accounts, police said.

Dawer Gilani, 32, of Atlantic Street, was taken into custody by Fairfield police Monday at his home and charged with 10 counts of violation of a protective order and violation of his conditions of release. He was held on a $250,000 bond and was scheduled to appear Tuesday in Bridgeport Superior Court.

Gilani was stalking the same woman he was charged with harassing previously, police said. She contacted police on Jan. 12 to report that Gilani was using the name Ali Umar and sending her friend requests on Facebook. While he apparently used a different name, he did not use a different photograph and the woman was able to identify him as Gilani. He also set up a Twitter account using that name, but police said the only person he was following on Twitter was the victim.

Police seized evidence from Gilani's car and home during the arrest.

Sgt. Suzanne Lussier said Gilani began stalking the victim at her place of employment last January when he was initially warned to stay away. The next month, he went to her office, and asked to speak with her, telling her co-workers that he knew her from the Planet Fitness gym in Trumbull. He was told to leave. In March, the victim found a note on her car, telling her not to call police. Afraid for her safety, she reported the incident to police.

In April, Gilani came to police headquarters asking if there was a legal way to contact the woman. Again, he was warned to refrain from contacting her in any way, and the woman was advised by police to obtain a restraining order.

Police spotted Gilani in May circling the parking lot of the Fairfield building where the woman works, and police said he admitted he was trying to find her car. Gilani was charged with stalking and criminal trespass in May and again in August. In June, Trumbull police also charged Gilani for repeatedly driving by the victim's home, while Bridgeport police have reportedly investigated five documented incidents involving Gilani stalking another woman in that city, police said.

According to court records, Gilani pleaded not guilty in August to threatening, harassment and disorderly conduct charges stemming from the Fairfield arrest and the case is awaiting disposition. He also pleaded not guilty to the Trumbull charges of stalking, breach of peace and violating conditions of release, and court records indicate that case is awaiting disposition. A third court case is blocked from the public with the notation that it is "statutorily sealed."

original article here