Man Pleads Guilty to $1 Million Online Romance Scam

(USA) A Maryland man has pleaded guilty to defrauding people on online dating services of more than $1 million by pretending to be romantically interested in them.

Thirty-three-year-old Krist Koranteng, who has addresses in Burtonsville and Laurel, guilty to mail and wire fraud conspiracy money laundering Wednesday in federal court in Greenbelt.

According to his plea agreement, Koranteng and others searched online dating websites to initiate romantic relationships with men and women, including several elderly people.

Prosecutors say Koranteng and others used false stories and promises to convince the victims to send money via checks and wire transfer.

Koranteng faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and will be ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution at sentencing on July 2.

Lack of Help for Victims of Cyberpaths & Scammers

by James Eli Shiffer

Jody Buell thought she was falling in love, but she fell for some­one who didn't exist.

The Burnsville, Minn., woman didn't catch on to the scam until she had spent more than $10,000 on her on­line admirer.

In­stead of sink­ing into de­spair, howev­er, Buell decided to get even.

For the past two years, she has been help­ing oth­er fraud victims get advice, support and fel­low­ship from an on­line group called romancescams.org. Since the Yahoo group was founded in 2005, it has helped more than 50,000 people from around the world.

"It's ba­sically a war," said site founder Barb Sluppick, a scam victim who lives in Mis­souri. "They're battling us for our mon­ey. We're fight­ing back, but we're fight­ing on our own because the govern­ment doesn't seem to want to get in­volved in this."

Govern­ment of­ficials say the biggest hur­dle is that the vast major­ity of suspects are located out­side their ju­ris­diction, usu­ally in oth­er countries. The epi­center of the scams appears to be West Africa, partic­ularly Nige­ria, where young men reportedly work through the night in Inter­net cafes per­pe­trating dozens of frauds.

"I've had scam victims from around the country getting ahold of us because they can't find anybody to pick up their case," said Jim Arlt, in­terim di­rector of the Minnesota De­part­ment of Public Safety's alcohol and gambling enforce­ment unit. "I am astounded at re­ally the lack of co­or­dinated effort in this area."

In the past year, the FBI has received more than 4,000 complaints about dating-site fraud, but the agency has no es­ti­mate on the financial impact, FBI spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said.

In some cases, the losses are dev­astating. An Arizona man who con­tacted romancescams .org said he was tak­en for $1million, and in Au­gust, a New York man shot him­self af­ter los­ing $50,000 to an on­line scammer.

When Buell first joined the group, Sluppick had to moderate her com­ments because she was still so angry. Now Sluppick consid­ers Buell her sec­ond-in-command.

Looking back, Buell said she can't be­lieve she mis­sed the warning signs. She said she decided to tell her story publicly for the first time because she counsels oth­ers to feel no shame for be­ing the victims of crime.

"Who in this world does not want or need to be loved?" said Buell, a longtime in­sur­ance bro­ker.

In 2008, the dating site eHarmo­ny.com matched Buell, 53, with Claude Eichmann, who de­scribed him­self as a Mary­land busi­nessman with an international mining compa­ny. Their friend­ship blossomed by e-mail, in­stant messaging and phone conver­sa­tions.

Paul Breton, a spokesman for eHarmo­ny, said he can't disclose the meth­ods his compa­ny uses to weed out crooks. But he noted the site also in­structs users to pro­tect them­selves by rec­ognizing the signs of a fraud - some­one who wants to move too quickly, who draws you into a sudden person­al cri­sis, who has a complicated story, who asks for mon­ey.

Buell's friend­ship with "Eichmann" played out over 3-1/2 months. His photo showed a smartly dressed man with unruly black hair. Af­ter a number of weeks they exchanged phone numbers, and while Buell was initially put off by his ac­cent, he re­m­inded her that he had grown up all over the world.

"Ev­ery time I would raise a doubt or a question, he would have a plau­sible answer," she said.

The two planned to meet, but first he had to trav­el to the West African nation of Ghana to open an office. Then trou­bles began. His office equip­ment suppli­er fell through. Could you send mon­ey? he asked. Buell refused, but he persuaded her to buy $10,000 worth of com­put­ers and phones and spend an­oth­er $1,300 to ship it to Ghana. Buell even included a pair of Timber­land boots he coveted, plus a lock of her hair.

Then "Eichmann" became ill and asked her to pay for his malar­ia medicine. Buell implored him to con­tact the U.S. Consulate, but he resisted he idea, so she went to the embassy website her­self. On the home page, she no­ticed a link to "romance scams."

"I clicked on it," Buell said. "It was like ice went through all my veins. Ev­ery­thing that hap­pened to me was listed on that website. My dream per­son turned into a nightmare in 15 sec­onds."

Buell reported the crime to IC3, the fed­eral Inter­net crime clearing­house, but she doesn't expect any fol­low-up. (IC3 reports an 9+ year backup on reports; many they dismiss.)

Af­ter Buell's sad encounter, an old boyfriend invited her to go on a bike ride. On the trip, he popped the question. Now she's happily married, but she's not for­getting what hap­pened to her.

original article found here

SURPRISE! Con Men Targeting Online Dating Sites

By Tamara Cohen and Lynn Davidson

(U.K.)  Dating and social networking websites are becoming a magnet for confidence tricksters preying on ‘lonely hearts’, a study reveals. It says as many as 200,000 people may have been persuaded last year to give money to fraudsters using false identities to pursue relationships with them.

But because of the shame victims feel, fewer than 600 cases were reported.

The researchers say ‘rom cons’ are particularly traumatic because of the ‘double hit’ of losing money and what victims had hoped was a romantic relationship. In some cases, victims have committed suicide.

The research at Leicester University – the first to measure the scale of this relatively new crime – found that in a YouGov poll of more than 2,000 British adults, one in every 50 knew a victim.

The fraudsters – usually tied to organised crime and based outside the UK – often use pictures of soldiers or models when making contact with their victims on dating or social networking websites. They then act swiftly to move the ‘relationship’ away from the monitored sites to personal online services such as private email accounts to carry out the fraud, claiming to be in dire financial straits or needing urgent funds that they promise to pay back. In some cases, when victims do not send cash, scammers involve them in money laundering by asking them to accept payments in their bank accounts.

The study’s author, Professor Monica Whitty, said: ‘Our data confirms law enforcement suspicions that this is an under-reported crime, and thus more serious than first thought.

‘This is a concern not solely because people are losing large sums of money to these criminals, but also because of the psychological impact experienced by victims. It may be the shame and upset experienced by the victims deters them from reporting the crime. We believe new methods of reporting the crime are needed.’

Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting and advice centre, identified 592 victims of the crime in 2010. Of these, 203 lost more than £5,000. But the losses can be as high as £240,000, according to the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Colin Woodcock, senior manager for fraud prevention at the agency, noted that the research found 52 per cent of people had heard of online romance scams, showing ‘progress has been made in raising awareness’.

But he added: ‘Millions of people in the UK remain at risk.

‘By being aware of how to stay safe online, the public can ensure they don’t join those who have lost nearly every penny they had, been robbed of their self-respect and, in some cases, committed suicide after being exploited by these criminals. It is crucial that nobody sends money to someone they meet online, and haven’t got to know well and in person.’

original article found here

EOPC HAS KNOWN THIS AND BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS!

...ONLY AFTER ONE THING

by Jill Papworth

OFT warns against scammers who build fictitious profiles on dating websites and befriend other users before asking for cash. Con artists on dating websites may ask for money to cover urgent medical treatment for a family member

Romantics should be on their guard against internet dating scams that can not only rip you off financially but also break your heart. The latest scam alert from the Office of Fair Trading warns that the increased potential to meet people online is being used by criminals to con people out of their money.

"Romance fraudsters" target singles columns and dating websites to search for victims. They create fictitious online profiles and send out unsolicited emails or letters, often with fake photographs, using the trust they build up to persuade their victims to part with large sums of money in frauds that can go on for years.

These typically involve the scamster telling their victim they want to meet them but are stranded without the money to travel or cover visa costs. They may also say that they or a family member require urgent treatment for an illness. The OFT says in one recent case a British national was kidnapped after travelling to west Africa expecting to be met by someone with whom they had established an online friendship. The individual had no idea that the online 'friend' was the fictional creation of a criminal group. The victim was assaulted, imprisoned for four days, and was released only when a ransom was paid.

"All fraud is destructive but dating scammers are particularly ruthless as they abuse the emotional trust and attachments that people invest when looking to meet someone," says Heather Clayton, senior director of the OFT's consumer group. The OFT says dating site users should take the following steps to avoid becoming victims:

• Know what you are paying for and what the dating agency promises to provide in return.

• If you receive any requests for money, be suspicious, even if you have known the person for a number of weeks.

• Be sceptical and ask yourself simple questions, for example, "Why am I the only person who can help them, when I have just met them?"

• If you meet somebody unknown to you, always meet in a public place and take a friend with you for support if you are unsure.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) adds that if you do decide to travel to meet an online friend, particularly if you go abroad, tell someone trustworthy where you are going, plan regular contacts and agree what they should do if you miss a contact.


original article found here

Hundreds of Victims of Romance Scams

Almost 400 Canadians complained they were victims of international ripoff schemes involving "romance" last year, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

Victims reported losing almost $3.5 million, with more than a third of the money lost by victims between the ages of 40 and 49. One octogenarian victim reported losing $20,000.

"It's the kind of scam that's not reported," said Cpl. Louis Robertson of the fraud centre.

Robertson said 586 people complained to the fraud centre that they had been approached in a romance scheme, with 390 reporting they lost money.

The corporal said that likely reflects only a tiny portion of actual victims, perhaps as few as five per cent of people swindled by Internet romancers.

He said that given the nature of the crime, many feel too embarrassed to come forward.

original article here

Another Online Romance Scam Victim

Mother + Daughter Team Runs Romance Scam

(COLORADO, U.S.) A mother and daughter in Adams County are accused in an internet dating scam that cost victims more than $1 million.

An indictment from the Colorado Attorney General accuses Tracy and Karen Vasseur of being part of a “Nigerian internet romance scam” involving people pretending to be military members serving in Afghanistan.

The fake soldiers would start relationships with women then ask for money for travel and other expenses.

Tracy, 41, and her mother, Karen, 73, live in Brighton. They allegedly tricked women into relationships and accepted payments via wire over a three-year period.

Six of their victims live in Colorado.

original article here

Romantic Deception

Abusive Husband Threatens Wife with Net Porn

(INDIA) A man threatened his wife to upload her obscene video on the internet if she did not bring money from her parents and withdraw case of domestic violence she filed against him with the police.

The incident took place in Gas Rahat Colony, coming under the limits of Nishatpura police station. Cases under sections of dowry harassment and criminal intimidation have been registered against the accused husband on Friday, the police said.

The complainant Shahnaz wife of Arif Sheikh stated to police that her husband, who is in grip of addictive habits, would beat her demanding money every now and then. He wanted his wife to get Rs 50,000 from her parents. Besides, Sheikh was also exerting pressure on her to withdraw the case of domestic violence she had filed against him in Mahila Thana in the past, the police said.

However, when the woman resisted to his demands, the accused threatened of uploading her obscene video on the internet. Subsequently, she approached the police and got registered a case against him.

Police said the two got married in the year 2005 and also have a son. The woman started residing separately in the same locality from past sometime due to repeated harassment by the accused.

The accused is a habitual offender and has also served two and half years in jail in connection with the infamous Gujarat train dacoity, the police said, adding that efforts remain underway to nab him.

original article found here

Online Romance: Proceed with Caution

by Josh Wolford

'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all

- Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1849

Do you think Lord Tennyson was also talking about loving and losing in the realm of online dating? Based on figures from a recent study by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), we highly doubt it.

According to their new study, the 2011 Internet Crime Report, online “romance scams” cost the lovelorn of the internet over $50 million.

The IC3′s report deals with all kinds of fraud across the interwebs, as they pull from the hundreds of thousands of individual complaints they receive each year. In 2011 alone, IC3 received 314,246 complaints totaling a total loss by victims of $485 million+. That’s around $1,500 in losses reported per complaint. Out of those 314,000+ complaints, 5,600 were of the “romance scam” variety.

What qualifies as a “romance scam” you might ask? Basically, any monetary manipulation using any available internet channel to deceive people with promises of false love. Man, that’s cold.

Victims believe they are “dating” someone decent and honest. However, the online contact is often a criminal with a well-rehearsed script that scammers use repeatedly and successfully. Scammers search chat rooms, dating sites, and social networking sites looking for victims. Although the principal group of victims is over 40 years old, divorced or widowed, disabled and often elderly, all demographics are at risk

Per the IC3′s breakdown, the complaints were made on a visible gender bias. Nearly 4,000 of the 5,600 complaints were from women. The hardest hit group was women between the ages of 40 and 59, who filed 2,656 of the complaints. All in all (men and women), the exact number the IC3 put on the damages was $50,399,563. That’s a lot of fraudulent internet wining, dining, and screwing over.

The Internet Crime Report talks about other common schemes like Auto-action fraud, work-from-home scams, and FBI impersonation email scams – but romance scams stick out. That’s because the average reported loss per victim was higher – $8,900 or $138,000 a day. Love hurts.

original article found here

Woman loses $20,000 in romance scam

(U.S.A.) Grand Forks police say a North Dakota woman has been bilked out of at least $20,000 in a romance scam.

Detective Mike Flannery tells KNOX radio that the 72-year-old woman thought she was wiring money to a male friend overseas. The con man told her he needed the cash to come to the U.S.

After receiving the money, he requested another $50,000 to help his ailing mother in Nigeria before relocating to North Dakota.

Flannery says there's a chance the woman's bank will be able to stop the second transaction to limit the woman's loss to $20,000.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center estimates romance scams netted some $50 million in 2011.

original article found here

Seduced into Scams: Online Lovers Often Duped

By Bob Sullivan

Richie's picture showed a jolly, bearded man curled up on a couch with a cat rubbing his face. "Loving, caring and hardworking," the online dating profile said.

When Theresa Smalley received a note from Richie last January asking if she wanted to chat, she was flattered. He seemed cute. The two began exchanging e-mails, friendly at first, but quickly swelling in intensity and passion. By Valentine's Day, Smalley received a box of chocolate candy, a teddy bear, and a helium balloon that said "I love you." Smalley, 46, was hooked, even though she had never met him.

Richie said he was from Milford, Mass., but that he was out of the country on a big construction job. He was helping build a stadium in Nigeria, he said. As soon as he returned, he promised, he'd come visit Smalley in Ohio. He couldn't wait, and neither could she.

The spirited e-mail romance hummed along for another two months before there was a problem. Richie said his boss paid him in postal money orders, and he was having trouble cashing them. Could Theresa do a small favor for him? Could she cash the money order for him, then wire the money to him in Nigeria? Smalley agreed, and over the next two weeks, she cashed two $900 money orders and sent along the funds. Then, Richie was ready to leave the country, but needed money to deal with a visa problem. She cashed another money order.

Then, Smalley's bank called her. Something was wrong.

"I had to call a special number at the bank. Even up until that point I still believed him. I had no qualms whatsoever cashing (the money orders)," Smalley said. Even after the bank told her the money orders had been altered — they were purchased for $20, but then "washed" and doctored to read $900 — she still held out hope. But a friend pointed her to an Internet site devoted to Nigerian scams, and suddenly, Smalley's world crashed down around her.

'My whole world had fallen apart'
"The bank told me I was responsible for that money. I had to pay them $2,700, which was everything I had," she said. "I was devastated. I felt like my whole world had fallen apart.

Smalley shared her version of events with MSNBC.com in the hopes that others might not fall for the same trickery.

"Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever known that this is all a part of an elaborate online scam. He spent four months gaining my trust and he did it."

So-called Nigerian scams, where victims are ultimately tricked into sending money to the African country using some irreversible method like a wire transfer, are common. The Secret Service and other U.S. agencies have issued warnings on the scams, also known as "419" or "advance-fee" frauds. But the seductive flavor of this type of the scam — known to some as "sweetheart scams" — and the incredible patience shown by the scammer reveal just how far con artists will go to trick their marks.

Ryan W. of Washington state, who asked that his last name be withheld, says he sent $15,200 to a similarly seductive scammer. And he wasn't even using an online dating service. Ryan was approached while hanging out in a chat room devoted to Grateful Dead fans. His seducer also claimed to be an American out of the country getting paid via money order, and also ultimately asked him to cash them. Five weeks later, when the bank came calling, all $11,000 in Ryan's bank account — most of it from a student loan earmarked for next semester's tuition — was frozen by his bank.

"Typically people go on the Net to get dates. I was just on there trading music," he said. "The thing that duped me was the whole music issue. She seemed to be into the music I was into."

Flowers bought with stolen credit cards
Nigerian-based con artists seem to have seized on sweetheart scams of late, said Dale Miskell, supervisory special agent in charge of an FBI cybercrime squad in Birmingham, Ala. Scam artists post ads to online dating sites and lurk in chat rooms with names like "40 and single," or "Recently dumped." Often, they reach out to a lonely soul with flowers or candy, purchased with a stolen credit card.

"A little gift of flowers or candy is a good aphrodisiac," said Miskell. "The next thing you know, they are in love. I can't tell you the number of women who have fallen for this."

Eventually, the con artists convince their soulmates to do them a big favor — help transfer funds out of the bank.

There have been so many victims that they are starting to find each other online. A new Yahoo group, "RomanceScams," was founded last month by Smalley and Barb Sluppick, who said she almost fell for a similar scam earlier this year. Among the hundreds of messages posted to the group are photographs of alleged scammers, links to potentially fraudulent online dating ads, and copies of come-on e-mails. The group is trying to publicize the problem to limit the damage.

"How many people are out there thinking they found the love of their life and they have no clue what's happening?" Sluppick said. "The first thing most people say to me when they contact me is, 'I can't believe I was so stupid.' "

Sweetheart scams appear to be on the rise, said Julie Ferguson, executive director of the Merchant Risk Council, which tracks scams for online retailers.

"I am definitely getting more calls on this. I used to get one every three months. Now, I get one every couple of weeks or so because it's the easiest way to get somebody hooked," Ferguson said. "The stories are so-gut-wrenching sad."

Some scammers seem to deliberately target groups set up for Christian singles, she said, where people may be less likely to be suspicious. "When you are meeting someone else on a Christian site, you think you are safe."

No dating site is immune from scams, said Jason Tarlowe, who operates MatchDoctor.com, where Smalley met Richie. "This hurts our business. We don't want this," Tarlowe said. "We're trying to do everything possible ... We don't want people to be taken in."

But they are, said Donna Gregory, supervisory internet crime specialist at the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Center. She said the con artists are relentless.

"We've even seen them take as long as a year (to seduce a mark)," Gregory said. Con artists will hunt for people's weaknesses, find out what they care about -- such as Grateful Dead music -- and then go in for the kill.

Sometimes, the online suitors don't even ask before sending money orders. They just send them, then guilt their targets into forwarding on the cash, Gregory said. In other cases, the con artists aren't after money -- they are after shipping help. They ask their correspondents to "re-ship" items to locations in Nigeria. The goods are often purchased with stolen credit cards, but the con artists have trouble getting them delivered out of the country, because many U.S. merchants are now wary of shipping to Nigeria. So the criminals need a middle-man.

"They say, 'Oh, once you have them, why not just send them? People say, 'I've got these packages and I don't know why,'" Gregory said.

Sluppick said one confused victim in her Yahoo support group currently has about $50,000 in merchandise that's been sent to her home, and she doesn't know what to do with it.

The Merchant Risk Council's Ferguson said victims can always contact her agency for help returning merchandise to the retailers.

'Keep your money to yourself'
But there is no returning money to consumers who have wired funds overseas, hoping to cement a love bond. Smalley said other would-be victims need to know about the perils of online matchmaking, and they need to listen to the little voices of hesitation and concern inside that she failed to heed.

"So much came back to me after all of this was done," she said. "I sat there thinking about everything. But these guys are professionals. They have the time. They have the patience."

Rhoda Cook has for years operated a Web site named straightshooter.net which maintains a database of sweetheart con artists. She's seen many varieties of romance scams, online and off. There's nothing new about charming men and women swindling would-be lovers, she said.

"When they invented the car, the con artist could drive to the next county. Now they can get on the Internet and go across the world," Cook said. "When you meet someone and you really want someone you just want to believe them."

Her advice to daters is the same, online or off:

"Enjoy the relationship, but keep your money to yourself," she said. "That way, if it goes wrong, all you're going to lose is your heart."

original article here

Divorcee Sues to Reclaim £6.4m Given to Internet Lover

By Amanda Perthen

(U.K.) A multi-millionaire divorcee has launched a High Court battle to reclaim £6.4 million from a lover she met through the internet.

Catherine Wood, 50, who amassed her fortune through property deals, met Shlomo Add via an online dating agency after she split from her husband, Jean Francois Cornet De Chansard.

But the romance turned sour after lawyer Mr Add persuaded Ms Wood to hand over millions of pounds during their four-year relationship, the High Court in London heard. The judge agreed to freeze Mr Add’s assets so that he could not dispose of them before the case came to trial. But Mr Add, 53, insists a large portion of the money was an ‘outright gift’ and is contesting the claims. The court heard that Mr Add came up with a number of plausible stories as to why he needed cash from her.

On one occasion he telephoned from Israel asking for £1.1 million in cash, saying he needed it for bail as he was in custody facing tax evasion charges. Ms Wood wired him the cash so he could be released. On another occasion, the court was told, Mr Add bought a Ferrari using assets belonging to Ms Wood.

Ms Wood, who made her money buying and selling properties through the family business, fought back tears as she said: ‘It’s been so painful, I can’t talk about it.’ The couple’s romance started in 2007 after Mr Add had split from his wife, Ruth, a former dancer. Despite Mr Add making regular trips to Israel, he and Ms Wood met regularly.

Mr Add lived in a £275,000 semi-detached house on an estate near East Grinstead, West Sussex. Ms Wood, who has two children – James, 17, and Natasha, 16, with Mr Cornet De Chansard – had a five-bedroom property worth £2.3 million in Golders Green, North London. But by the time the relationship had ended, Mr Add had bought a £550,000 house on a private road just a few miles from his previous home, which he still owns.

Last week, a blue Maserati saloon and a grey four-wheel-drive vehicle were parked on the driveway. Mr Add is currently staying at his £1.2 million waterfront apartment just outside Tel Aviv. A neighbour said: ‘The people who buy property here are not just any people. ‘They are wealthy bankers, Russian oligarchs, French millionaires and some of Israel’s best known figures in the underworld.’

Mr Add declined to comment on the court case, adding that his daughter Hila, who is in the Israeli Defence Force, was staying with him and he had no time to spare.

After granting permission for Mr Add’s assets to be frozen, Judge David Cook said at the High Court: ‘Her [Ms Wood’s] allegations, if correct, show a course of conduct over a number of years in which he [Mr Add] has been able to obtain assets of a wealthy woman under a series of pretexts and promises which he has not kept.’

The case continues.

original article here

How to Avoid a Broken (Online) Heart

Here are some red flags that might indicate an online "romance" may be nothing more than an attempt to steal your money:

• You've never met face to face with your online suitor.

• They profess love immediately, often within 24 to 48 hours. They claim fate or God brought you together.

• They quickly use terms of endearment: "sweetie," "hon," "baby, " etc. (they can't remember your real name)

• On a social networking or dating site, their profile photo disappears soon after making contact and they prefer chatting by instant messaging. If they chat with you by webcam, theirs never seems to work.

• Their emails use bad grammar, poor spelling and the pronoun "i" instead of "I." They often misspell the name of their supposed hometown and don't know any local landmarks.

• They misunderstand typical American slang, such as "night owl" or "poker face."

• They quickly send small gifts (teddy bears, chocolate, flowers), often purchased with stolen credit cards or unwittingly by other victims being scammed.

• When asked a question they can't answer, they go offline to look up a response, always claiming they had a phone call or needed a bathroom break.

• They claim to be well-paid professionals in another U.S. city but traveling overseas for work assignments (engineering, mining, solar power, construction, etc.).

• They often say they've lost a spouse, child or other family member in a horrible accident or have seriously ill family members.

• They repeatedly request financial help for varied, urgent reasons: airline tickets to visit you; hospital bills after a car accident; difficulty accessing their bank account while traveling; need for shipping, customs fees, etc. for work assignments; family members require emergency surgery.

• They always have a new story for why repayments don't arrive.

• After an online absence, they call you by a different name, an indication they're working several victims at once.

• If caught in an inconsistency, they always have a cover-up (e.g., someone else used their computer to talk with you) or suggest you don't trust them.

• They insist you keep the relationship secret until they come to live with you.

___________________________

• For victims seeking support, go to www.RomanceScams.org, an online nonprofit started in 2005 to raise awareness and offer peer counseling.

original article here

Romance Scammers Pose as U.S. Military to Entrap Women

by Charlotte Gill and India Sturgis

(U.K.) As she sat down in front of her laptop to read the latest messages from her online admirers, Elana Brown felt a flutter of excitement. Divorced for seven years, she had been persuaded by a friend to sign up to the Jewish lonely hearts website, JDate.

For two months, she’d logged on and chatted to several potential suitors, but each had come to nothing. But today, as she checked the messages in her inbox, one in particular caught her eye.

‘It was from a doctor in the U.S. Army serving in Afghanistan,’ recalls Elana, a 47-year-old learning support assistant who lives with her sons, aged 17 and 20, in Ruislip, West London. ‘His name was Sergeant Terry Scott. He liked my picture and said he would like to get to know me.

‘He told me that he had a nine-year-old son, that his wife had died in a car crash two years earlier, and he was looking for love again. It was a heartfelt message and he seemed a genuinely nice guy.’

Elana had no hesitation in tapping out a reply. ‘He replied almost straight away and we began emailing each other every day. After a week, we were getting on so well that Terry asked for my phone number and he started calling me.

‘His voice was lovely — he had a deep American accent and sounded kind. He would ask me how I was and about my two boys. We could chat for ages, sometimes four hours at a time. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to hit it off with someone I’d just met online. Looking back, I should have been more cautious. But I suppose, because I was looking for love, I wanted so much to believe in him.’

Certainly, there was nothing to suggest that Terry was anything but genuine.

‘He sent me lots of photos of himself in the Army. He told me about how hard life was in Afghanistan. In my profile, I’d written that I was looking for someone who was manly, but also able to help out around the home. He told me he’d take care of me, that he’d come to England and marry me. He said he wanted to make me happy.’

It was a whirlwind romance: just a few weeks later, Terry announced that he loved Elana and wanted to meet her. ‘He said he looked forward to meeting my sons and that we would all be one big family. It may sound naive now, but I believed him.’

Then, just three weeks into their relationship, Terry made a request which should have set alarm bells ringing.

‘He said that one of his soldiers had been shot, and he and his friends were trying to raise money so he could be sent to Russia for treatment. He asked me for £300 towards it.

‘I believed him, but I told him I just couldn’t afford the money. He then started bombarding me with texts and phone calls, saying they were desperate for the money. Terry promised that I would get the money back. He spoke to me so nicely that I just thought: “OK, I’ll give him the money.”

‘I transferred it by Western Union, as Terry had requested. He was so grateful and assured me he would pay the money back as soon as he could.

‘He promised he was resigning from the Army and would get a $300,000 (£190,000) payout. He said it was his Army pension. Then he would come to England and marry me. I was even sent official-looking letters from the U.S. Army stating that money I had sent was being used to get security clearance so Terry could leave the Army. They looked genuine to me.’

After that, Terry came up with endless reasons for needing more money. He wasn’t getting paid by the Army; he needed funds for a business he had set up. Blinded by love, Elana sent more cash. In the two months they were in contact, she parted with nearly £10,000.

Of course, she never did get to meet the man of her dreams. She was, in fact, the latest victim of an online dating scam targeting vulnerable older women.

Earlier this month, the National Fraud Authority announced £2.5 million has been stolen by online dating con-men in the past six months alone.

‘Fraudsters who take advantage of online dating sites are a particularly sinister lot,’ says the NFA’s chief executive, Dr Bernard Herdan. ‘They use clever psychological tricks to gain the confidence and affections of legitimate site users. They are attentive. When a romance fraudster has gained a person’s trust, that’s when they begin to ask for money.’

Increasing numbers of women, such as Elana, are falling victim to this kind of fraud — in particular to criminals in West Africa posing as U.S. soldiers. The U.S. Embassy in London received 500 phone calls and 2,000 emails reporting various types of internet scam last year.

Many victims feel too embarrassed and ashamed to confess they’ve been duped.

In a survey last month, the Office for Fair Trading found that 39 per cent of people who had been tricked in the past year did not report it to the authorities.

‘I can’t believe how foolish I was now, but I was in love with this man and I thought I was giving him money to help him resign from the Army so we could be together,’ says a heartbroken Elana.

‘I used all my £600 savings, took out a loan and had to remortgage my home to scrape together the money. But Terry promised I’d get my money back with interest. I thought we were going to spend our lives together, so why wouldn’t I get it back?’

When her elder son tried to warn her, she rowed furiously with him: ‘I wouldn’t listen. And all for a man I’d never met.’

After taking a last payment of £2,600 from Elana, Terry promised that he would repay the money within days, then fly to the UK to be with her. But the money never appeared. And neither did he.

The truth dawned on Elana when ‘Terry’ suddenly ceased all contact. ‘My son was right,’ she says tearfully. ‘I had been duped. I cried every night. I was a mess.’

A few months later, she heard the story on Crimewatch of a woman who had lost £45,000 to a Nigerian fraudster posing as a U.S. soldier and realised her story was virtually identical. Elana then contacted Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting centre, and investigators told her the payments she had made went to internet scammers in Nigeria and the UK.

By then, the fraudsters were long gone, along with any hope she would get any of her money back. A year on, she is working longer hours and paying back £200 a month to get rid of the debt.

‘Looking back, I see how naive I was. These fraudsters are so clever. I am not usually a silly person who easily trusts people, and yet here I was being conned.’

But it’s too late for divorcee Kate Roberts. The 47-year-old gave £80,000 to a gang of Nigerian fraudsters posing as a lonely U.S. soldier between October 2009 and July 2010. ‘I was taken in,’ she says. ‘Aside from losing the money, I feel I’ve lost the love of my life. I know he wasn’t real — but the feelings were real to me.’

Kate, a mother of three, had to sell her house to pay off crippling debts after taking out credit cards, loans and borrowing from family and friends in order to send money to the virtual ‘lover’ who contacted her on the Friends Reunited Dating website in October 2009.

‘Scammers carefully target and then tap into people’s wants, needs and vulnerabilities,’ explains psychologist Anjula Mutanda, who has worked with knowthenet.org.uk. ‘Initially, online dating fraudsters spend time emotionally grooming the person. They show interest, gain trust — reeling the person in before hitting them with the sting.’

Despite the huge rise in cases of online dating fraud, awareness among the 2.5 million women who internet-date is alarmingly low.

Elana is keen to stress that the victims are not stupid: ‘I’d heard of scams, but I never thought I would fall for one. You may think that this could never happen to you, but I am proof that it can.’

original article found here

Vulnerable & Scammed - Man Commits Suicide

(U.K.) When lonely divorcee Philip Hunt fell for a beautiful woman on an internet dating site he thought all his prayers had been answered.

She convinced him she was young, fabulously rich and if he could help transfer $2.9million from Nigeria to the UK then they could start a new life together, an inquest heard today.

Unfortunately it was all an elaborate scam that would cost Mr Hunt £82,000 and ultimately his life.

The 58-year-old was hooked on the fantasy of a future with the stunning 'Rose' and he willingly paid out tens of thousands of pounds to help her beat malaria and get her funds through customs and into the UK.

The cargo officer remortgaged his house, took out loans, ran up overdrafts and begged for cash from his employers after repeatedly transferring money across to the fraudsters' account.

Eventually he became so hopelessly mired in debt that he committed suicide by lying down in front of a train.

Although warned by a former girlfriend that he was the victim of a 'scam', Mr Hunt appeared to believe in Rose until the very end.

His mobile phone was found in a rucksack near his body and a text message to Rose - which was never sent - read: 'I'm cold, lonely and depressed, I'm so lonely without you tonight. Going to meet my maker..'

Twice-married Mr Hunt went online in search of love after splitting up with girlfriend of three years Lesley Smith. He began exchanging texts and emails with Rose, who claimed to be living in Nigeria. She sent him a picture of herself and he quickly fell in love with the attractive white brunette. Over the months that followed Mr Hunt was tricked into thinking Rose was seriously ill and in desperate need of his help. The prize was the rest of his life with her and her cash.

Each time he came close to arranging a meeting with 'Rose' the anonymous criminals behind the 'romance scam' demanded further cash for hotels, medical bills and travel expenses to the UK. He even travelled to London to meet two of the fraudsters who claimed they needed money for an expensive solution which would magically turn scrap paper into $100 bills.

Mr Hunt met two 'agents' at the Travelodge near London's City Airport. He was greeted by two large men who opened a case containing scraps of black and grey paper. One of the men then sprayed a note with a mystery substance which seemed to turn the filthy paper into a $100 in front of his eyes - convincing him to hand over more money to pay for the chemical spray.

Mr Hunt began wiring over money in December 2008. At one stage he asked to borrow £25,000 from his employer, a shipping company at Immingham Docks, but later retracted the request and resigned from his job.

His last contact with the fraudsters was in June last year and he died on August 13 when he was hit by a train and suffered multiple injuries.

Police investigating his death found a handwritten note at his home in Grimsby addressed to them, which read: 'I just can't take it any more.' They also found bundles of emails outlining the huge scale of the fraud and a message predicting his own suicide. He wrote: 'I have insurmountable debts and will take my own life.'

A jury at the inquest in Hull returned a verdict of suicide.

After the hearing former girlfriend Miss Smith said: 'These people are out to get people when they are very vulnerable, they are like vultures. I'd like to alert people to this so they can be aware and be cautious. Philip was a quiet and reserved gentleman, and he was very intelligent which makes it all the more unbelievable that he fell for this, but he was at a low ebb and they got him when he was most vulnerable.'

Detective Chief Inspector Danny Snee, of British Transport Police, said: 'People need to be very wary, if something looks too good to be true it usually is. They should be particularly wary about parting with money with someone they have never met, it just doesn't ring true. The demands for money for supposed medical bills, hotel bills and travel expenses were endless.'

He said a criminal investigation into the international fraudsters was ongoing, although no arrests have been made.

original article found here

Over 200,000 in Britain Duped by Online Dating Scams

by Peter Walker

(U.K.) Number of unreported cases likely to be far higher as individual losses range from £50 to £240,000

More than 200,000 people in Britain may have been conned by fraudsters posing as would-be romantic partners on internet dating sites, according to the first study examining the potential scale of the problem.

Anti-fraud groups have warned for some time about scams, in which criminals create a false identity – often an army officer on active service, explaining an inability to meet in person – and develop a close online intimacy with a victim, who is then asked for cash to help their presumed suitor out of a crisis.

It had long been suspected that official figures for such crimes greatly under-represented their prevalence, largely because many victims feel too embarrassed or hurt to go to the police, or never realise they have been conned.

The study by the universities of Leicester and Westminster, working with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), found 2% of people surveyed personally knew someone who had experienced the crime. Extrapolating this to the online UK population means more than 200,000 potential victims.

Monica Whitty, a psychologist and professor of contemporary media at Leicester University, said that the pool of those targeted was likely to be greater still as it did not include people who realised what was happening before they lost money and those who still did not realise they had been conned.

The researchers had been "shocked" at the numbers involved, she said.

There has been an assumption that victims tend to be middle-aged women. However, said Whitty, targets were from both genders and all age groups.

Aside from the financial costs involved – Soca has tracked individual losses ranging from £50 to £240,000 – those conned also faced the heartbreak of discovering that the person with whom they had fallen in love was the invention of a skilled con artist, usually Nigerian or Ghanaian, and often not even of the same gender.

"A lot of people find it very hard to accept what has happened, even if they know the person involved is now in jail," Whitty said. We've had male victims who still refer to the other person as 'she', even though they now know it was a man. In a few cases they've found the relationship so therapeutic they keep it going, even if they know they've been conned."

The scams often begin with an online dating site profile carrying a notably attractive photo, taken from elsewhere on the internet, and a description of someone in a remote, hard-to-contact location – whether a military base in Afghanistan or, to tempt male victims, a UK or US nurse at a small foreign hospital.

The use of almost exclusively online communication – the criminals occasionally resort to phone calls but these are rare given the extra difficulty of explaining away an accent – can actually accelerate intimacy, Whitty said, allowing victims to project their own hopes and desires on to a warm and empathic correspondent.

"Email and instant messaging can have the effect of being hyper-personal. Lots of people get in touch with someone through a dating site, meet them a few weeks later and this person doesn't live up to their expectations. With an online relationship this never happens."

The faked romances can last for a long time – the longest the researchers heard of was five years – with each criminal juggling a series of parallel relationships. At some point comes the request for urgent financial assistance, often to help them out of supposed difficulty.

"They might test the waters by asking for a present, for example saying they've lost their mobile phone and need another one. If this happens, they'll ask for money. It's like a clever marketing ploy."

Very few cases are seemingly reported. A spokesman for the UK's National Fraud Authority said the agency had learned of 730 crimes over the past 15 months, totalling £8m in losses.

The survey, covering more than 2,000 people, found that just over half were aware that such romance scams existed.

While this was a positive sign, Colin Woodcock of Soca said, significant numbers of people remained at risk.

"The perpetrators spend long periods of time grooming their victims, working out their vulnerabilities and when the time is right to ask for money," he said. By being aware of how to stay safe online, members of the UK public can ensure they don't join those who have lost nearly every penny they had, been robbed of their self-respect, and in some cases, committed suicide after being exploited, relentlessly, by these criminals."


How to spot a dating scam

Soca has compiled a list of tell-tale signs for people to look out for if they suspect their internet suitor is a con artist.

• A distant location and/or a job in the military: by pretending to be serving in, for example, Afghanistan, or on an oil rig, the scammer has a convenient excuse for being unable to chat on the phone or in person. When men are targeted, the other party often tends to be a nurse working in a remote country.

• A fondness for Windows Messenger or similar applications: aware that dating sites are increasingly conscious of such cons, the perpetrators can be keen to continue their wooing elsewhere.

• A suspiciously attractive and/or rugged-looking photo: of course, not every good-looking person lurking on a dating site is a fraudster. But the con artists tend to select particularly alluring physical alter egos, which they borrow from elsewhere on the internet.

• A quick adoption of a pet name: if, by the second email, you are being addressed as "dearest fluffy bunny", beware – it could be a fraudster looking to establish instant intimacy.

• A predisposition towards financial or other misfortunes: it is perhaps the most obvious tip, but if a suitor you have never met suddenly crashes their car, or needs an expensive airfare or a lawyer, be on your guard. The same goes if they start alluding to gold bullion or suitcases full of cash they hope to bring to the U.K.

original article found here

Stranded in Ukraine After Online Dating Scam

The former write-in candidate for Arizona governor traveled to Ukraine looking for love. He ended up hungry and sick in a homeless shelter — the victim of an Internet dating scam.

Social workers were stunned to find Cary Dolego, 53, sitting on a city street last Wednesday, behaving strangely and suffering from pneumonia.

Dolego, who ran for Arizona governor just last year, had traveled to Ukraine this spring to do research for an engineering project and look for a wife. He says he met a woman named Yulia online and, hoping to marry her, went to her hometown of Chernivtsi.

She never showed up.

With nowhere to go and no money left, Dolego spent days roaming the streets of Chernivtsi along with other homeless men until he was picked up by social workers and taken to a shelter. He spoke by phone Wednesday from a hospital where he was being treated for pneumonia.

"I was looking for a Ukrainian mate, a partner, somebody who would stay with me, be my wife," Dolego said. "All the Slavic ladies in this part of the world are absolutely delightful."

Social workers were shocked.

"He looked bad — his clothes were dirty, he was dirty, he looked like a typical homeless man," said Anastasia Beridze of the Narodna Dopomoha (People's Help) charity.

A woman who acknowledges being Yulia says she had been unaware of Dolego's existence during the Internet fling.

The woman, who declined to give her last name out of fear of attracting publicity, said in an interview that someone had hacked into her account on an Internet dating site and had been communicating with Dolego on her behalf, charging Dolego for those e-mails.

The woman, who was contacted through a mobile phone number provided by Dolego, acknowledged that the account he'd been interacting with on the site was hers. She denied being part of any scam. "What happened is ugly," she said.

Yulia, a 29-year-old doctor by training, said that after she found out what happened to Dolego, she paid him a visit to express her sympathy.

"I went to the hospital and he started hugging me: 'Oh Yulia, oh Yulia!' I was shocked," she said. "He thought we were getting married."

Dolego confirmed that she visited him and he believes they could still be together.

"We seemed to hit it off," Dolego said. "She wants to continue with the relationship."

Yulia has a different take. "He is not really my type," she said.

Before his Ukrainian adventure, Dolego, of Queen Creek, Arizona, says he was pursuing a bachelor's degree in organizational studies at the University of Arizona.

Passionate about engineering, he claims to have designed a "lifesaving" method to keep ships from sinking and aircraft from disintegrating during a crash. He says he sold his house, truck and motorbike and left for Ukraine to further study the method here.

But Dolego, a twice divorced father of three, also had another goal — finding love with a beautiful East European woman.

After finding no support for his project in various Ukrainian cities and being evicted from a room he was renting, he said he boarded a train to Chernivtsi, hoping finally to meet his Yulia and settle down.

After he arrived, Yulia stopped answering his e-mails. With his U.S. bank account frozen and no means of supporting himself, he said, he became a homeless man. He was reduced to sleeping on the streets and seeking shelter at a local railway station, according to social workers.

"Things befall people that they cannot predict," Dolego said. "I will work through it."

Beridze said that besides being understandably worn out and ill after days of living on the streets, Dolego was exhibiting abnormal behavior. "He talks a lot and gestures a lot. He is acting strangely."

Beridze's group has contacted the U.S. Embassy in Kiev and is planning to buy Dolego a train ticket to Kiev, the capital, from where he could fly back to the United States. The U.S. Embassy declined to comment, citing the Privacy Act.

original article found here

Posing as Soldiers Online, Stealing Women’s Hearts & Money

Think twice before falling for that hot soldier stationed in Iraq, says the U.S. Army - especially if you met him on a dating website.

It’s rather easy to spot and avoid those Nigerian-prince email scams, but hundreds of women have been falling prey to this more sophisticated “romance scam,” reports Jezebel.

In this type of plot, thieves take on the identities of actual servicemen based in Iraq or Afghanistan, grab a couple photos off the Internet of said soldier, and go to work scamming on social media based dating sites. The scammers start building relationships with women online, eventually asking them for money after wooing them and gaining their sympathy and trust. One woman fell so hard she sent $127,000 to her supposed military love.

The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) has issued several memos about the situation, including one last month, warning citizens to be “extra vigilant” and not fall for these impersonation frauds, “especially scams promising true love, but only end up breaking hearts and bank accounts.”

Victims tend to be unsuspecting women, 30 to 55 years old and the scammers are usually based in African countries and go to great lengths to make their email addresses untraceable and route accounts around the world. After manipulating their victim’s emotions, the scammer will ask for money in some rather creative ways: money to buy “leave papers,” to cover medical expenses, for a flight home to see their fake lover in person.

So, things to keep in mind when online dating?

One, it’s not real until you’ve met the person.
Two, “Don’t ever send money!” Remember, love don’t cost a thing.

read more here

original article found here

10 Internet Daters Die After Flying to Africa with Money

By Adam Boulton

Families fear victims have been poisoned by gang
'Bride' claims new husband became ill and died

Ten men who emptied their bank accounts and flew to Africa hoping to marry women they had met on the internet have died suddenly.

The victims, who did not know each other, all flew to Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, after falling in love with local women online.

Their families in Belgium later received phone calls from Cameroon in which a sobbing woman told them their relatives had died from a mysterious illness.

Belgian police suspect the men were tricked out of the money they took with them to start new lives with their 'brides' before being poisoned by fraudsters.

One of the victims was named yesterday as Mikael Pietquin, 30, from Brussels, who vanished after falling in love with a woman nicknamed the African Bomb. His father has told police his son phoned home before he disappeared to say his future bride had made him eat a 'love plant' to improve his sexual performance.

'We heard nothing more until the sobbing woman phoned us and said: "Mikael is dead",' the father said yesterday.

'The bride said my son was sick when he arrived and took an overdose of medicine from Belgium. We did not believe her.'

Another victim was reported to be a former Belgian airline pilot from Hastiere in Southern Belgium.

original article here