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

Woman Scammed Starts Support Group for Survivors of Online Dating Fraud

by Simon Leo Brown

(AUS)  In 2010 Jan Marshall tried online dating, and soon after met a man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with. 

Less than two months later he disappeared, leaving her heartbroken and in thousands of dollars of debt. 

"I just took everything on face value – I wanted to be loved by a man, I wanted to be taken care of by a man," said Ms Marshall.

Now Ms Marhsall, who trained as a social worker, is starting a support group so survivors of online dating fraud can meet and talk about their experiences.

"Just in the talking and hearing themselves talk, there is a healing process," she said. 

By the time she discovered she had been conned, Ms Marshall had paid out more than $250,000.
Her ordeal started soon after she moved to Melbourne to be closer to her family.  "I had a job organised down here before I came, so I was feeling pretty good about myself and decided that I wanted someone to explore Victoria with," said Ms Marshall.

She signed up for online dating site Plenty of Fish, and shortly after was contacted by a man named Eamon, who claimed to be an English civil engineer living in the USA.  "I was a bit surprised [by] somebody contacting me from so far away, when I was clearly saying I wanted somebody to explore Melbourne with, but we continued to communicate," she said.

Over the next month Eamon expressed a keen interest in Ms Marshall, and soon began professing his love for her.

"They bomb you with love," she said.  "This was somebody I felt I could marry and spend the rest of my life with."

"They make sure they take up a lot of your time and they isolate you from your friends," said Ms Marshall.  "If your friends say watch out for this guy, they say 'don't listen to that friend; what we have between us is special and they will never understand'."

She said the late nights left her tired, lowering her defences.

By this time the man claimed to have gone to Dubai to take up a short-term work contract, after which he said he would come Australia to be with her.

It was then that he started to ask for money.

"In Dubai there were an increasing number of problems that he needed financial support for," said Ms Marshall.

"There was supposedly a cheque he had received for the work which he couldn't cash because it needed to go into his bank in England."  He also said he needed money to pay taxes or they wouldn't let him leave the country.  "I gave him money for the taxes and that night he was attacked and he lost the money."

Just as she thought she had paid his way out of the country, he claimed to have a car accident on the way to the airport. 

"The next thing he's in hospital needing money for medical treatment," said Ms Marshall.

Finally, just after he told Ms Marshall he had left Dubai, he cut off all contact.

"I realised it was a scam," she said.

Ms Marshall was left thousands of dollars in debt.

"Some of it was personal savings, some of it was increases in my credit cards, and finally when I was getting desperate I took money out of my self-managed super fund, which I was not allowed to do."
The tax office made her close the fund down and demanded she pay tax on the amount she withdrew.  "I've ended up with a tax debt of over $70,000," she said.

"I've got absolutely no idea how I'll pay it because my job was made redundant last August."
She hopes to find a publisher for a book she has written about her experience.
Ms Marshall used reputable companies to transfer the money, but police later discovered the funds had been diverted to Nigeria. 

Seeking out support, Ms Marshall discovered a number of online resources for victims of so-called romance scams.

However, Ms Marshall feels the word "scam" underplays the seriousness of the crime she and others have suffered. 

"We are subject to fraud from professional fraudsters," said Ms Marshall.   'I had been put in a thrall, hypnotised in a sense. I understood later how effective they are at the fraud and how professional they are.  It creates an environment where people don't share, don't talk about it."

She said she "basically became a hermit" after the experience, and it has affected her ability to meet another man.

"It's very hard to trust," she said. "It's very hard to share what's going on with you because it's so awful."

Potential partners found it difficult to relate to her story.

"The couple of people I did meet and share that with, they're aghast," she said.  "I've never spoken to anybody else who's been impacted by a scam the way I was," said Ms Marshall.

That will soon change.

On New Year's Day Ms Marshall started a new group on the social networking site Meet-Up where people who have experienced an online dating scam could meet and talk. 

More than a dozen people have joined the group, and the first meeting is planned for January 15, 2014 
.
Ms Marshall was inspired to start the support group after seeing a similar group in Queensland.  "The ability to talk to others who have had the same experience is a very healing thing," she said.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOUND HERE

SCAM ALERT: Stephen Perez AKA Norita Binti Yakob in Malaysia - Affection Love Scam # MY004598HT6

Are you a victim of the affection scam run from Malaysia under the name of Stephen Perez AKA Norita Binti Yakob?

DId you send money to the bank account of Norita Binti Yakob? If so, please email me as we are putting together a group of victims so that the Malaysian Police will take the matter seriously. So far more than $400,000.00 has been scammed, and that number is growing.

CONTACT US 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

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

ROMANCE SCAMMER IN JAIL

by Pat Coughtrey

The man behind a sophisticated and lucrative online dating scam, who used love as a means to dupe women, has been sent to jail for six years and four months.

Hery Agunu, 25, was sentenced on October 25 after he had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by misrepresentation after a bank in America stopped a payment which it believed to be fraudulent and alerted the US authorities.

They handed the case over to the Met Police’s Operation Podium, which led the investigation that tracked Agunu down.

The court had heard that Agunu, from Forest Gate, used Facebook, dating websites and other social media to portray himself as a white, widowed American businessman in search of love and companionship. He built a number of aliases, using details of real people.

He spent anything from two weeks to months on grooming his victims into forming a relationship with him and even falling in love. Then he would persuade the women that he was struggling financially and needed to borrow money until he got paid.

In one scam, Agunu told the victim he had won a multi-million pound contract to deliver “platform and transport services” for the Met Police during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. He went to great lengths in researching and writing a fake lucrative contract showing himself as the winner of the work.

Bankrupt

Podium have identified 17 victims from America, Canada and Trinidad and Tobago, aged from their mid-fifties to late seventies. One victim, a 69-year-old woman from the US, sent Agunu £144,000 as a result of his scam. Another victim lost so much money to him that she has had to declare herself bankrupt.

Agunu worked with 39-year-old Evelina Sisin from Edmonton, whose bank account was used to launder some of the money. She pleaded guilty in June to money laundering and was sentenced to 18 months in jail on October 25.

After the case, Det Supt Nick Downing, of Operation Podium, said: “Agunu was a sophisticated and charismatic operator who deliberately wormed his way into way into women’s affections, promising love and marriage, simply to rip them off. He has made thousands of pounds, and left a number of women suffering more than just financial loss.

“My advice to anyone is simple – no matter what the circumstances, never give money to anyone you meet online and cannot prove for yourself they are who they say, even if they use the name of a well-known organisation, such as ours, or produce professional-looking documents in an attempt to add credence to their claims. Such things are all too easy to fake.”

Agunu, of Odessa Road, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud at Isleworth Crown Court on October 22.

The judge ordered that other offences of money laundering lie on file.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOUND HERE

Woman Scammed via Online Dating Site

by Alison Smith Squire

When Alison Peters’ 42-year marriage hit a rocky patch, she sought comfort with a man she met on a dating website.

But unbeknown to Alison, 65, a teacher, her new romance was an internet scammer – who was to cruelly fleece her of £120,000.

Today, Alison who is now living in a caravan and trying to piece her life back together said: 'I can’t believe I was so stupid. I thought I was an intelligent woman. But I have lost my savings, my home – and almost completely lost my marriage.

'My life has been left in ruins.'

Alison’s nightmare began last year after she decided to try online dating.

She says: 'I’d recently moved out of the home I shared with my husband David, 68. We were going through a rocky period in our 42 year marriage. “David said he wanted a fresh start. He wanted to sell our house. He wanted to buy a boat and go sailing round the world without me. I was devastated. I hoped he was having a mid-life crisis but then he put our house on the market and we’d both seen solicitors and decided to divorce.'

A few weeks earlier Alison, a mum of two and grandmum of four, had been to a friend’s wedding.'She was marrying a wonderful man she had met on the internet,' she recalls, 'and so as my marriage was over I thought why not. My profile said, "Woman going through divorce... I am looking for friendship, good conversation and companionship".  I put up a photo and was amazed when a few days later I had seven replies.'

One was from Steve Myers. Claiming to be a widow aged 55, he said his wife had died twelve years ago. Half English and half Hungarian, he’d lived in America for a long time but he now had houses in Virginia, the U.S. and Croydon.  Says Alison from Basingstoke, Hants: 'Steve claimed he worked as a self-employed petroleum engineer earning £100,000 a year and travelled the world.  'Within an hour of messaging, I found myself pouring my heart out to him: "You deserve better," he wrote sympathetically after I’d said how devastated I was about my marriage. 'He sent me a photo and when I saw his kind face, I couldn’t help but warm to him.'

The next day Steve rang explaining away his unusual accent with the fact that he travelled so much.  Over the next few days Alison could barely wait until the evening when they would chat online.And over the next couple of weeks his emails became affectionate. 'He would write, "You’re someone I could marry" and when I said I was a Christian, back came another email full of bible quotes.'

Within five weeks the pair had agreed to meet. But as the big day arrived there was a problem.  Recalls Alison: ‘He told me he’d been called to the US. He said, ‘"There’s an oil contract in Malaysia that my company bid for – a $5.2 million dollar contract. I need to go to a conference in the US run by a large energy company."'On his way to the airport, I got another surprise phone call: "You couldn’t top up my mobile phone credit could you?" he asked, "Only I’m not going to be able to do it while I’m away." 'I said, "Of course not," What was £50 pounds between friends…'

Over the next couple of weeks, Steve continued to email. It was agreed Alison would pick him up from the airport and Steve sent his flight details.  'My stomach tingled as I imagined us running into one another’s arms,' says Alison, who booked a hotel for him. Only the day before he was due to return her mobile rang. She expected to hear Steve’s voice but it was another man on the end of the phone.'The Asian sounding man had a message for me. There had been a big explosion and accident on the site in Malaysia. Unfortunately Steve had to cancel his flight to the UK and fly to Malaysia that day.  The news hit me in the stomach. I’d been so excited to meet Steve at last. I’d even already paid for his hotel room.'

A few days later, in November, Steve rang, this time asking for $12,000 to buy equipment.  Alison admits: 'A tiny part of me nagged that it wasn’t genuine. But he told me he was going to give me a share of the 5.2 million dollar contract. And when tenatively I mentioned about scams Steve was so offended.'

Over the next few weeks she wired over the rest of her £23,000 savings.  'Once my daughter Catherine overheard me talking about money with Steve but I assured her I wasn’t sending him money,' she says.  However, she was still paying £50 a month for his mobile phone bill and Steve had promised her he’d soon be back in the UK.  And by now January 2012 she’d taken out two bank loans on the internet and sent over another £20,000 for more equipment.  'But when Steve asked me for more money to pay tax I told him he’d have to wait until the house I shared with David was sold.;

Then in February Alison rang husband David to discuss the house. 'Just hearing his voice made me realise how much I wanted to be with him, she recalls, 'and David felt the same about me.  'I told Steve from now on our relationship could be on a business footing.'

In February the house was sold and Alison moved into a caravan until she could afford another property. But Steve needed more money.'Steve had so many bills to pay and was under so much strain, he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer. So I sent him £70,000. It was terrible news but at last the contract was finished. 'Steve': This is one of the pictures that the scammers pretending to be a man called 'Steve' sent to Anne 'Steve': This is one of the pictures that the scammers pretending to be a man called 'Steve' sent to Anne

‘At the same time I received an email from an organisation called Crown Third Party Finance to let me know 5.2 million dollars was waiting to go into my account.'The only snag was before it was to be released, I’d have to pay £10,000 for a special certificate.' Alison had no money so went to David, who thought it was a scam – but Alison showed him documents and convinced him to hand over the money.  She says: 'I expected to see millions in my bank account soon.'  But, of course nothing ever arrived.

On her daughter’s advice, Alison went to the Police – who believed she’d been part of an elaborate sting. They promised to investigate but warned Alison she was unlikely to get the money back. 'As soon as I got home, I emailed Steve,' says Alison, 'I was in a terrible state. I said, "You’re a scammer and I’ve gone to the Police. Because of you I’ve lost everything …"

'Incredibly, Steve emailed back denying it was a scam. But by then I knew it was. I put my head in my hands and wept. When I found Steve wasn't real, but a person made up by some scammers to dupe me I felt so betrayed.  At the time I had liked him so much. At my lowest my confidence was bolstered. At the time I truly believed I'd found a true companion, someone who understood me.  To find out he wasn't real and just concocted for me was terrible.'

She adds: 'Thankfully David has stood by me. And in fact he has helped me through this terrible time. In a way it's brought us both closer together and it's made us realise we don't want to throw away 42 years of marriage.  We still have our ups and downs but we're determined to make our relationship work. A few weeks ago he moved into the caravan with me and has bought a boat. We are hoping to buy a little bungalow together.

'But I will never get over losing so much money. I still wake up every morning and ask myself how I could have been sucked into a scam like this. I still feel incredibly foolish for believing all those lies.  But the lies were clever and I was at a vulnerable stage in my life. Even the Police said I was "ripe for the picking", I only hope telling my story will warn others.'

original article found here

Match.CON: How a Fraudster Fleeced a Woman on Online Dating

by Stephen Wright

(U.K.) 'I've been utterly stupid,' said 60-year-old Brenda Parke

A vulnerable divorcee was conned out of £60,000 (approx $95,200. US)by a man she befriended - but never met - through a dating website. Brenda Parke, 60, fell victim to a confidence trickster who persuaded her to part with her savings to help his supposedly sick daughter. They arranged to meet at Birmingham Airport so he could repay the loans, but he never arrived.

Miss Parke, a retired air stewardess, admits she has been 'utterly stupid' but now wants to raise awareness about 'romance fraud'. Police estimate that Britons are losing tens of millions of pounds as a result of scams by conmen who target emotionally vulnerable Westerners on dating websites.

Other victims have included dentists and barristers. Miss Parke, who had never used a dating site before, joined Match.com last December and befriended a man calling himself Bradford Broad Cole. Over the following weeks they developed a close relationship via emails and phone calls. Cole portrayed himself as a successful Dutch businessman who earned his living supplying and fitting computers. He said his partner had died and he was estranged from family and friends, claiming to have moved to the UK a year ago with his young daughter, Maureen. But she was injured in a hit and run abroad while accompanying him on a business trip, he claimed, and he needed £9,600 for an operation.

He did not ask Miss Parke for money directly but moaned that he had no one to turn to, having borrowed as much as he could from the bank. She repeatedly told him she could not help and each time he said he understood, but she wrestled with her conscience as she did not want to leave a child in trouble. Eventually she offered to pay the hospital direct, but discovered it only accepted cash, so she arranged money transfers to Cole. Miss Parke handed over more money after Cole said he needed £44,500 for his business and further cash for his accommodation and transport home. The police are now investigating the case.

Miss Parke, who has no children and lives in Sussex, said: 'I am fully aware how utterly stupid I have been and appreciate there is little, if any, chance to get my money back. However, I have always considered myself to be a bright and intelligent woman. If I could be manipulated and reduced to "a puppet on a string" because of this man's subtlety and supposed sincerity, then there are millions of vulnerable people out there just waiting to be abused by a very professional and consummate actor. It is so cunning and amazingly well done that I am reeling with shock at my own vulnerability.'

'I urge dating sites to take far more responsibility for who they allow to advertise on their websites.'

Miss Parke agreed to waive her anonymity to talk out about romance fraud for national fraud reporting centre: Action Fraud. Dr Bernard Herdan, of the National Fraud Authority, which runs Action Fraud, said: 'Fraud is a serious crime that devastates lives and often funds more organised crime such as drug smuggling.'

original article found here

This Doesn't Happen to People Like Me

By Lesley-ann Jones

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells is not amused - and in this case it is no mere figure of speech.

Sitting at home in the Regency spa town famous for its Jaeger-clad Hyacinths and Daphnes, Caroline Gates-Fleming can only laugh at the irony. ‘I am one of them, really,’ she says, dabbing gingerly at the tender scars of a recent facelift.
Caroline Gates-Fleming at her home in Tunbridge Wells. 'Things like this don't happen to women like me."

‘Middle-class, middle-aged, respectable. I was brought up nicely and married well. Our boys went to public school. But after what I’ve been through, I know they’d find me unacceptable around here. Things like this don’t happen to women like me.’

She has a point. For in Caroline’s case, ‘things like this’ means dabbling in fraud and embracing folly on such an epic scale that even her close family struggles to comprehend. ‘Everyone asks how could I have been so stupid,’ she sighs. ‘I got more than I bargained for.’
How could she fall in love with a foreigner on the internet and then, despite his many and obvious lies, entrust him with £40,000, money she will never see again?

In fairness, Caroline, now 54, has the honesty and intelligence to talk about her motives and the loneliness which is at the root of her current predicament. Similar to many women of her age, with two failed marriages behind her, she badly wanted the comfort of a relationship.

‘What woman doesn’t worry about growing older?’ she asks. ‘It’s not just about looks. Confidence evaporates. Builders no longer wolf-whistle. When you have always attracted men, invisibility hits hard. It’s in the genes: my late mother Pauline was always glamorous. I won’t even pop to the shops without full make-up.’

As a young woman, Caroline had worked as a jobbing stage actress and dancer, and all that theatrical attention, she admits, had made her rather vain. Later in life, she turned her hand to property development, buying, renovating and selling cottages with some success. ‘Coming to terms with ageing is my problem. I need reassurance from a man,’ she says. ‘I was unhappy alone, and shattered by having brought up three boys. ‘Marcus, my first husband and father of Piers, my eldest [now 24], was long gone. Peter, my second husband, father of Rupert and Theo [19 and 18] had little to do with us.’

Craving a fresh start, in 2002 she moved to Marbella in Spain, where, rather romantically, she thought she might meet a new partner. ‘I still craved that special someone to say, “Want a cup of tea? Let’s have a cuddle,” ’ she says. ‘It is not about sex, but togetherness.’

But she never really settled and returned to Britain after four years, depression having kicked in, and in need of a job. If glamour has always been a watchword for Caroline, she was still not too proud to take on ‘unattractive’ jobs and found work as a full-time carer for people with learning disabilities. Her stores of confidence, though, were dwindling. ‘I was still alone, still desperately unhappy,’ she says. ‘I wanted to be flattered and taken out. But it’s so much harder to meet men when you are older. My girlfriends were all married. I had to do something. I’m not the kind to wait for things to happen. They say you learn from your mistakes, but I’ve made the same mistakes with the same kind of men my entire life.’

So when, in August last year, Caroline came across Match.com, a high-profile dating website, the temptation to sign up was overwhelming. It felt safe and respectable, she says, and, after all, ‘you had to pay’ to join. At first she was conservative, making sure her meetings took place in coffee bars during the daytime, but she soon found that her ‘dates’ were on the cautious side, too. ‘There was never that spark,’ she explains, flicking at the pink tips of her bleached blonde crop. ‘I began to find men my age too old for me. I don’t feel like a woman in her 50s. I fight it. I’ve had a gastric band and a facelift.’

Then she came across a man she calls Sab, who seemed so very different from the run-of-the-mill men she had been meeting. ‘Of course, his name is really Steve,’ she says, of the man she now understands is a Nigerian called Stephen Ehiamhen. ‘I call him Sab because, when he first advertised on the site, he called himself Sabastine Roland. He used a fake picture and posed as a Greek, claiming to be an entrepreneur in Nigeria.’

Caroline accepts that even the earliest signs were dubious.

‘He was vague about his age,’ she says. ‘First it was 47, then 37. He told me that when he applied for a visa to travel to South Africa, he had been advised to say 27 so that he could make out he was a student going to the World Cup. ‘After two emails, he phoned. I knew the moment I heard him that he wasn’t Greek.’

In fact, while ‘Sab’s’ English was limited, he most certainly did not speak the language of Sophocles, preferring a version of pidgin laced with dialect and slang that is widely spoken in Nigeria. ‘I challenged him about it but he laughed,’ says Caroline. For all his obvious lies, she found him attractive. ‘We messaged and emailed every day.

'He soon said he was falling in love with me and I began to feel the same. I found it hard to explain to my sons that I was falling for someone I’d never met. Strangely, though, you communicate at a very intense level when it’s not face-to-face. Sab is a direct, articulate person. He said he goes to church every Sunday and that his faith is strong. He said we were fated to meet. When he first emailed that he loved me, a month after our initial encounter, I wrote, “Don’t go there.” I was terrified of the intensity of my feelings towards him.’

Caroline was well aware that much of ‘Sab’s’ story was invented, yet it was only after two months of passionate conversation that the two of them spoke seriously about his identity. ‘He confessed he was not who he’d said he was, that he couldn’t do it to me any more, that he “hadn’t planned on the emotion”, as he put it.’ He had to come clean. Hearing that he was really a black Nigerian came as no shock - his pidgin English and African-style dialect had given Caroline a major clue. She says: ‘He said he was desperate to do something with his life, that he’d been looking for money to get into oil.’

At this point, she explains, her story took a darker turn, one very much at odds with the image of respectability so carefully nurtured by Royal Tunbridge Wells, a town that has not so far made its money through black-market oil deals on the coast of West Africa.

By this stage, the alarm bells should have been head-splittingly loud, yet somehow Caroline managed to ignore them. It’s big business in Nigeria,’ she says, now shocked by the sheer madness of the scheme he was proposing. We fell into each other’s arms. We kissed, we sobbed. I had never been so happy since giving birth to my first child.'

He explained how easy it is for gangs to tap the vast network of oil pipelines coming ashore from the wells on the Niger delta. It is known as ‘bunkering’. Armed with basic engineering skills - and guns - they drill into the network, fix their own lines, hidden from view beneath the water, then watch while a waiting barge is filled with stolen crude. ‘They get an agent, siphon oil, barrel it, store and then freight it by tanker at an appropriate time,’ she says.

‘I was under no illusion. It was obviously illegal. I’m not proud that I was tempted. Perhaps his assurance that he could make around £1.25million overnight was what convinced me.’ And, then, as she says: ‘Love changes everything. We seemed to have so much in common. We were both risk-takers. More importantly, he seemed so much stronger than me. I’d never had that. ‘Both my ex-husbands were weak, which was perhaps why those marriages didn’t last.’

Foolishly, as she now admits, Caroline had told Sab that her mother had recently died, and that she was due to inherit a share of the house where her sister, Jennifer, lives in nearby Southborough, with her disabled husband Stephen and their two children. ‘He never asked me how much money I was going to get,’ she insists. ‘But suddenly it was all about doing this oil deal. I had a gut feeling something was wrong. He said he’d make his fortune, pay me back, then set up in business importing luxury American cars. I was desperate to travel to Nigeria to see him. I knew all the risks. I’d heard about women being captured, held to ransom, even murdered.’

They arranged to meet in South Africa, a neutral country from where Sab could organise the ‘deal’ and where Caroline could organise the facelift she had wanted for some time. She says: ‘After a few hiccups with Sab’s visa - I paid for his flight, of course, all the while thinking, “scam, scam scam” but doing it anyway - I got there. I got off the plane in Johannesburg, churning, sweating, feeling like a teenager. I went through Arrivals, trying desperately to look cool. 'There he was, beaming and waving. We fell into each other’s arms. We kissed, we sobbed. I had never been so happy since giving birth to my first child.

‘We had breakfast in the airport, then went to a hotel. I gave him presents. He cried. I showered. We talked. “God, you’re so beautiful,” he kept saying. “You only look 30." It was all I needed to hear. One thing led to another. It was so intimate. I’d never experienced anything like it before. I knew this was true love. I almost wish now that it HAD been just sex, but it wasn’t. 'He wasn’t the skilled, experienced lover, but quite shy. If that was all just part of an act, he should get an Oscar.’

They spent a month together, staying in small upmarket hotels. ‘Sab’ never once put his hand in his pocket, but Caroline was happy to pay and happy to be loved. We went on to Cape Town, where he planned his deal over the phone in front of me,’ she says, ‘showing me things on the internet, all proof in my eyes that he was honest.’ Then they visited a consultant about her plastic surgery. ‘Sab wasn’t happy about me doing it, but it’s cheaper there. I was desperate to look younger for him. I returned to the UK and went back for the operation six weeks later, having also paid for Sab’s visa extension. He had found a small apartment for £300 a month. I had the facelift, he looked after me. I could not have looked worse, but he stayed. Again I returned home, truly believing in him. I sent another £5,000 for his oil permit, then £2,500 for two trucks and an escort to the tankers. At last, three weeks ago, he set off to get the oil.’

' I was madly in love with him. I still am.' Romance scamming, as it is known, is more common than ever, with British women at greater risk than those of any other nationality. At this point, what seems grimly predictable to a neutral observer takes on an air of the inevitable. ‘Sab’ had already warned her about ‘militant factions’ who can prevent deals such as his from taking place. ‘He’d made the risks very clear, but I believed he could pull it off,’ she says. 'Then we lost contact. At about 4pm on the day, his mobile went down. I couldn’t reach him for days. 'We went from speaking and texting every day to zero. Eventually he called. He was sobbing and said, “How can I talk to you, how can I face you? I’ve lost everything.” ‘I was in shock. I’d lost 15 months of my life and everything I owned. I’d handed over close to £40,000.’

As well as the upfront money he claimed to need for the oil scam, Caroline had wired regular gifts of cash to her Nigerian lover. An additional £20,000 she admits, sadly, has been spent on travelling and the facelift. Caroline had borrowed the money from her sister, Jennifer, against her share of the family home. Fortunately, Jennifer was still able to keep the house.

That same night, after receiving the phone call, Caroline wrote letters to her sons and sister and swallowed an overdose of painkillers. ‘I felt that everyone would be better off without me,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t wait to see Mummy and Daddy again. I reverted to my childhood. It was the easiest way of letting go. My sister found me, and called the ambulance. She hadn’t known much of what had been going on, but now they had my mobile phone and trawled through everything.’

Her family are still trying to persuade Caroline to make a complaint to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), and co-operate with them to have her lover arrested. According to SOCA, ‘romance scamming’, as it is known, is more common than ever, with British women at greater risk than those of any other nationality.

One scammer in Ghana, Maurice Fadola, has defrauded 16 women, taking £700,000 from five of them. Caroline was well aware of the risks. Yet still she believed in ‘Sab’ - and still, to some extent, believes in him now. ‘He had an explanation for everything,’ she says. ‘I believed him because I was madly in love with him. I still am. ‘After all that I’ve lost, half of me trusts him. The other half - if the authorities can give me proof - wants them to bang him up and lose the key. All I know is that I’ve never felt so much emotion as with this man. We all have our Achilles heel. I was so desperate to be loved that I’d believe almost anything.’

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

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

Husband stole $200,000 from Women met Online Dating

(Boston, U.S.) A married man met four other women online, romanced them over several years and then stole more than $200,000 from them by feigning financial and medical problems, authorities said.

Albert Lovering, of Waltham, Massachusetts, was indicted Tuesday on 23 counts of larceny, pleading not guilty on Wednesday.

Lovering, 54, met the women through various dating websites and deceived them into believing he was romantically attached to them, Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said.

The women loaned Lovering money – including one who gave him more than $100,000 after meeting him just once – with the expectation he would repay them, but he never did, Mr Leone said.

'These allegations are extremely troubling and the defendant's lies spanned several years, targeting numerous victims who were conned into believing the defendant cared for them,' Leone said in a statement.

Lovering's lawyer, Daniel Flaherty, revealed his marital status as he asked a judge to release his client on personal recognizance as he awaits trial. He said Lovering has lived with his wife in Waltham since 1999.

The judge rejected the request and set bail at $10,000 cash.

Mr Flaherty did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the accusations, the Associated Press reports.

Lovering allegedly met the first woman in 2006 after they both placed dating ads on Yahoo.com.

The woman agreed to loan him $1,000 after he told her he had placed a bid on eBay on an item he had to purchase immediately, prosecutors said. He allegedly then told the woman he needed more money for several purchases and that he needed her to co-sign a loan.

When the loan was approved, he used the money for himself and did not repay the woman, Mr Leone said.

Lovering met the second woman in 2008 through a personal ad on Craigslist and courted her with 'romantic dinners and professions of warmth, affection and physical attraction,' Mr Leone said.

He also convinced her that he needed $28,000 to complete an eBay purchase, authorities said.

The woman never saw Lovering again, but he continued to communicate with her electronically, telling her he had to stay in hospital in New Hampshire for a serious medical condition, Leone said.

He allegedly told her that his health insurer would not pay several of his medical bills and that the hospital would not release him until those bills were paid.

'Based on his need, her affection for him and his promises of repayment, she sent a series of checks payable to him to a post office box,' Leone said. In total, the woman loaned him more than $70,000, he said.

Prosecutors said Lovering met a third woman in 2009 through Craigslist.

When they met for the first time, Lovering allegedly told the woman he owed the Internal Revenue Service back taxes and asked for a loan.

The woman loaned Lovering $7,200 and never saw him again, Mr Leone said. Lovering met the fourth woman through Plentyoffish.com, authorities said.

They met only once, but Mr Leone said Lovering led the woman to believe he was romantically interested in her and told her he needed a loan to pay back taxes. The woman gave him two checks totalling $1,500 on the promise that he would repay her, authorities said.

Mr Leone said Lovering told the woman in January 2009 that he was hospitalized in New Hampshire and unable to get discharged until all his medical bills were paid.

The woman repeatedly sent money to him through a post office box, investigators said. All told, she loaned him more than $100,000, they said.

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