Online Dating Sites Sued for Fraud

Are Yahoo and Match.com bolstering their online dating services with fake ads and professional flirts?

Two lawsuits filed in California recently make such bold claims, separately accusing both firms of fraud.

Match.com says the claims are baseless; Yahoo didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

In the Match.com case, Orange County, Calif. resident Matthew Evans accuses the site of having a "very dirty, very big secret."

"Not everyone that you meet on Match.com is just another Match.com member, " the lawsuit says. "They are Match.com employees with a secret, fraudulent mission."

Evans claims Match uses "date bait" - employees who pretend to be regular subscribers that flirt with members. The lawsuit claims online daters are often approached by date bait just as their subscriptions are about to expire. Victims receive "winks" and e-mails designed to trick them into renewing their membership, the suit alleges.

Evans also claims in the lawsuit that Match.com employees are required to go on "as many as 100 dates per month," and they are "stationed in most of the major U.S. cities."

Match.com spokeswoman Kristin Kelly called the lawsuit "completely without merit." The firm doesn't send automated winks, she said, and employees are not required to date members. Match.com has about 250 employees worldwide, and 15 million members, making the date bait claim "ridiculous."

"The allegations in this case have absolutely no basis in fact and are completely without merit," she said.

The complaint was filed Nov. 10 in U.S. District Court in Northern California.

In the Yahoo case, filed on Oct. 14, Robert Anthony of Broward County, Fla., accuses the firm of creating fake profiles to keep members interested. Yahoo, the lawsuit alleges, "deliberately and intentionally originates and perpetuates false and or nonexistent profiles on its site to generate interest ... and give the site a much more attractive and functional appearance in order to falsely represent more substantial participation than actually exists."

The lawsuit supplies few other details, however.

"Due to the complicated nature of the fraud, and the use of technology to pertpetrate the fraud, Anthony is unable to disclose all of the examples of fraud," it says.

Anthony's lawyer, Peter McNulty, didn't respond to phone calls requesting comment.

Both lawsuits seek class-action status.

'Black hole'
Mike Arias, Evans' lawyer in the Match.com case, said his client learned about the alleged practices directly from a Match.com employee he dated. Arias said he has no other plaintiffs in the case at the moment, but that he's spoken to other victims and lawyers investigating Match.com practices.

"We've investigated it enough we (to believe the allegations)," he said. "I've talked to enough people who have given me scenarios."

The lawsuit also claims that paid Match.com workers read member e-mails in order to be more seductive to members they contact.

"Match.com typically has their paid employee contact a subscriber immediately before the end of their subscription," it says. "(The employee) goes on a date with a subscriber, (and) gives the deceptive appearance of having a lot in common with the subscriber due in part to having read his or her e-mails."

Match.com's Kelly said employees are allowed to use the service, but are not told to date members.

Evans' lawsuit also claims that a flaw in Match.com technology prevents profiles older than 30 days from appearing in some searches the Web site offers. "Unless a person updates their profile, they fall into a 'black hole' of outdated profiles, never to be seen by any other person on Match again," the suit says.

Online dating is big business; for a time, it was the fastest-growing e-commerce sector. But the industry has always beaten back complaints about fraud and misrepresentation among members. Two years ago, an MSNBC.com investigation revealed a high percentage of ads on several sites were thinly veiled lures to paid porn Web sites. More recently, Nigerian scammers have seized on the services, frequently placing fake ads that lure victims into feigned relationships ultimately designed to trick them into sending large sums of money to criminals outside the U.S.

There have been accusations that dating services benefit from such practices, because if more attractive, young members appear to be using the service, that draws in more paid members.

"That is ridiculous," Kelly said. "We aggressively defend against fraud and proactively pursue it through our fraud and abuse team."

(from 2005)

Secret bait claims hit dating website

A TOP internet dating website has been accused of secretly hiring people as "date bait" to go out with some of their one million customers so they would keep paying for the service.

The lonely hearts website Match.com secretly recruited people to send enticing emails to its customers and to go out on dates with them as a way of getting them to keep up their $41 monthly subscription, a Los Angeles racketeering lawsuit said.

The company's ring-ins, branded "date bait", went on up to 100 dates a month -- three per day -- with Match.com customers, who use the site to search for boyfriends, girlfriends and spouses.

"Hiding behind Match.com's portrait of online success is a very big, very dirty secret . . . Not everyone you meet and date through Match.com is just another Match.com member," says the lawsuit.

Kristin Kelly, a spokesperson for Match.com, which has an estimated one million paid subscribers and 15 million members, said the lawsuit was completely without merit and would be vigorously challenged.

The lawsuit was filed by Matthew Evans, a Match.com customer who hopes it will draw support from enough other customers to turn into a much stronger class action suit.

Mr Evans' lawyers said he went on several dates with an attractive woman named Autumn Marzec before she allegedly confessed she was paid by the company to meet him.

Such people are given access to customers' emails to familiarise themselves with the customer, allowing them to feign interest and compatibility, the suit claims.

The worker goes on a date with the subscriber and acts as if they have a lot in common so the subscriber re-signs.

The suit also charges that when a customer's subscription was expiring, Match.com produced fake responses to customers, suggesting another person had an interest in meeting them in order to prod them to resubscribe.

The suit represents growing reports of disappointment among the tens of millions of customers of the online matchmaking industry.

The industry enjoyed an estimated $334 million in turnover during the first half of 2005. - AFP
*****

Leading online matchmaker sued for bogus dating scam

Match.com, one of the top Internet dating websites, has been accused of hiring people as "date bait" to date some of their one million customers to encourage them to keep paying for the service.

A Los Angeles racketeering lawsuit said the lonely hearts website secretly recruited people to send enticing emails to its customers and to go out on dates with them as a way of getting them to keep up their 30 dollars monthly subscription.

The company's ringers, branded "date bait", went on as many as 100 dates a month - three per day - with Match.com customers, who use the site to search for boyfriends, girlfriends, and possible husbands and wives. "Hiding behind Match.com's portrait of online success is a very big, very dirty secret ... Not everyone you meet and date through Match.com is just another Match.com member," said the lawsuit, filed in a Los Angeles court on November 10.

Kristin Kelly, a spokesperson for Match.com - which has an estimated one million paid subscribers and 15 million members — denied the charges, saying the lawsuit is "completely without merit" and would be "vigorously" challenged. The lawsuit was filed by Matthew Evans, a Match.com customer who hopes it will draw support from enough other customers to turn into a much stronger class action suit.

Evan's lawyers said he went on several dates with an attractive woman named Autumn Marzec before she allegedly confessed that she was paid by the company to meet him. Such ringers are given access to customers' emails to familiarize themselves with the customer, allowing them to feign interest and compatibility, the suit claimed. "The paid Match.com employee then goes on a date with the subscriber, gives the deceptive appearance of having a lot in common with the subscriber ... with the intent of luring the subscriber into re-signing with Match.com," the suit alleges.

The suit charges as well that when a customer's subscription was expiring, Match.com produced fake responses to customers, suggesting another person had an interest in meeting them, in order to prod them to resubscribe. The Los Angeles suit represented growing reports of disappointment among the tens of millions of customers of the online matchmaking industry, which is led by Yahoo! Personals, Match.com, and EHarmony.

The industry enjoyed an estimated 245 million dollars in turnover during the first half of 2005. While the industry advertises its success stories - customers who meet online and eventually get married - some disappointments have raised questions of industry practices. Earlier this year Californian James Hunt complained that for the nearly 3,000 dollars he paid to matchmaker Together Inc., he didn't receive the guaranteed nine introductions of "nearly compatible" women. The company disputed his claim.

In New York, the Great Expectations dating service was recently ordered by a judge to refund money to two women who said they never got any dates after paying up to $1,000 for a six month subscription. "I just wanted to go out for coffee and have nice conversations with a couple of people. Instead, I got not a single introduction," said a disappointed 43 year old who identified herself only as Jennifer. "I think I’ll stick to meeting people at bus stops and the elevator," she said.
*****

Better to have loved and lost, even on the internet

A quick look at any online dating site will tell you that everyone is lying

The online dating world has been rocked by claims in Los Angeles that dating companies have been paying women to go on sham dates with male subscribers to make the men think the site is generating results and thus renew their membership fees.

A man in his thirties who signed up to www.match.com, a web dating service that claims 12 per cent of American weddings began with an online introduction has launched a lawsuit accusing the company offraud. He claims to be the victim of a scam he discovered after a "buxom, dark-haired, younger woman" that he had taken on several dates confessed to having been paid to make contact with up to 100 members a month.

More complaints and revealing comments on Online Dating, click on the site name(s)

:

Mate 1

EHarmony and Cupid.com

Adult Friend Finder

True

Yahoo Personals

These are just a few! BEWARE!!!

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

Romance Scammers using Fake Webcam Footage

By Pat Williams

A new evolution in romance scams is about to create tens of thousands of new victims. Online Dating Magazine reports that scammers are now using fake Webcam footage to convincingly deceive victims.

Here’s how it works:

First, the scammer spends weeks inside Webcam chat rooms recording footage of an unsuspecting person on different days. The person being recorded doesn’t know they are communicating with a scammer.

The scammer then tries to deceptively obtain photos of the unsuspecting person by email. The scammer may also find photos on Facebook or via online searches.

Finally, armed with photos and multiple days of Webcam footage of the unsuspecting person, the scammer creates a fake online dating profile to lure victims.

“Up until now scams would consist of communication via an online dating service followed by emails and phone calls,” says Joe Tracy, publisher of Online Dating Magazine. “Now scammers can initiate fake Webcam chats with you to further make you believe the lie. They have full control over the footage. They can pause it, make it jump to a point where the person is laughing, type when the person is typing, etc. It comes off as very realistic and impressive.”

Tracy says that this new scam is creating two types of victims: the person being scammed, and the person who was recorded by Webcam and doesn’t realize their footage is being used in scams.

Imagine a guy named Andrew having a Webcam chat with someone he believes is a 28-year-old traveling businesswoman. The scammer memorizes the illicit video and bookmarks, in advance, certain parts of the video for quick access. So Andrew may see a woman in the Webcam typing while the scammer types, “Andrew, look at this new dress I got today.” The video of the woman in the Webcam then stands up to show off the dress. There’s now no doubt in Andrew’s mind that the person he is chatting with is real when in reality it is someone completely different. It’s possible to have a Webcam chat with the “person” on 18 different occasions and they are wearing 18 different outfits. That’s how elaborate this new scam has become.

Tracy warns that the scam can be taken further, with scammers using recorded Webcam sessions of their victim to scam someone else after they’ve gotten the victim’s money.

“This has taken the romance scam to an entirely new level,” says Tracy. “Word needs to get out quickly to warn people about this new development.”

Tracy says that the best way to test whether you are Webcam chatting with a scammer is to innocently ask them to do something and see if they react. For example, type, “What’s that crawling on the wall behind you?” If the person “pauses” or doesn’t look, then that’s a major red flag. When asked to do something they don’t have footage recorded of, scammers will pause the Webcam video and attribute it to a communication problem while answering your question in the chat window.

Online romance scams are the most successful of all online scams, costing victims worldwide hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

“Some of these scam organizations are making more money that the big online dating services,” says Tracy. “It’s important to warn people so that they don’t fall prey to these elaborate schemes.”

original article here

THOUGHTS ON CYBERPATHS - FROM PROFESSIONALS & VICTIMS

Here on EOPC, we have quotes from victims of Cyberpaths and professionals dealing with Cyberpaths' victims as well as thoughts on the long term after-effects of their attacks. You may have read them elsewhere, you may not. We think they're important and powerful enough to include here so you can read them in their entirety - EOPC

FROM VICTIMS: "The potential for damage is overwhelming. Overnight, many lives are turned inside out when it has been revealed that the person that you gave your love and your complete trust to has betrayed you. The emotional and financial scars are deep" --- Target of Julia-Bish-Judah-Hunt-McGovern

"I will gain strength, become a stronger and much wiser person from this devastating experience, but it will never be over. It will be with me for the remainder of my days on Earth. I will forever be changed by this most ultimate & intimate of betrayals... They throw us away like an old pair of shoes; and like the predators they are, they quickly move on to their next victim. The magnitude of the lies cannot be imagined by anyone unless you have lived this nightmare"-- Wife #7 of Ed Hicks

"Everything was a lie. [He] took away my ability to trust, and he ruined me financially"- Wife #6 of Ed Hicks

"I will never trust anyone else after this. My heart is closed now and I think I don't want to get to know ANYONE else... I feel so used! A million showers won't clean my body from this snake's touch!" -- Target#1 of Nathan E.B. Thomas, Jr.

"I prayed I was just overly sensitive because of my years of being in one abusive relationship after another. Even now I find it difficult to fathom how you can give so much of yourself to a person and have them so totally wipe it all away as if it never happened with no remorse & go on their merry way leaving a path of destruction & half-truths behind them.
I'd known him over 25 years. I thought I could trust him. I did what I did from the heart and with genuine, deep emotion - and he knew it! Now he says it was 'all a game' - that's first I have heard it was a GAME!
Realizing someone you have known for so long, spent so much time talking with, did it ALL just to USE you is horrifying. The grief is no ordinary grief. After distancing himself from me, he can now tell stories, all of which are twisted, with the spin to make HIM look the victim. At least I have hard evidence that he's lying. It's nothing less than soul murder." --Target #1 of Jeff Dunetz/ YidwithLid

"...for the first time in our relationship, I began to cry. I realized he was a TOTAL fraud. He said he "was looking for the right girl" in his dating profile. I thought, "how could he say that when he told me I was right for him?" I had changed myself at his direction and was at the point of exhaustion... I was horrified by the fact he used the SAME EXACT language in the profile as he did online! ...he threw me away, all the while BLAMING ME for not being "good enough." How could this person call himself moral ... when he was a complete liar. -- Target of Brad Dorsky

"[He] included EVERYTHING that was missing from my life, as if he could read my thoughts and make my wishes come true. I can see now he really studied me well and became "my perfect mirror." He knew exactly what to say to make me feel good; especially after being in an abusive marriage for so long with no attention from my husband. This man "love bombed" me and I didn't even know what hit me!" -- Target of Keith Clive

"Being lied to is a hurtful thing. Being conned by someone you love is a devastating thing. You find that the facade .... was lies on his part; and how empty & meaningless [you were to him]. It hits below the belt and it scars you emotionally, financially... You become a laughingstock...
Some say I am obsessed with this man, but in reality, I am obsessed with getting justice done. There can be no closure on this until that happens. Even then I will never trust anyone whole heartedly with my love, my life or my money again. ...all I wanted was to be loved, and he turned that into a crime that suited his needs." -- Target of William Michael Barber

"While doubters may still find it dubious that on-line romance could ever take the place of a real relationship, the husbands & wives of Net-addicts are discovering that cybersex can pose a direct threat to their marriages. "...We went through it and a little while later [my cybersex partner]messaged me and said, 'If I message you again & ask you if we had sex, say no, OK?' I said, 'Sure, why?' She said her husband is very jealous and comes on-line when she's on, to make sure she isn't netsexxing."

....Pearl's husband was not as lucky. "My ex-husband, Lee, would vanish into the basement every night for hours, saying he had brought home a lot of paperwork from the office. We missed a lot of parties and family events, but I never questioned it. I felt sorry for the poor guy, working so hard to give me and the kids some extras. Then, one day when I was cleaning out the room, I found a sheet of paper under the desk with a love-letter printed on it." Pearl was even more traumatized when she turned on his PC and found a sub-directory filled with HUNDREDS of love-letters from different women, addressing her husband as "Prince Charming." "The Prince lost his castle," Pearl says sourly. "I changed the locks on him and filed for divorce."

Carl Salisbury, an attorney at Killian & Salisbury in East Hanover, NJ, who specializes in electronic law, notes that cybersex-related suits are showing up increasingly in American courts. "There was a case in Maryland where a MacDonald's franchise had an email system," says Salisbury. "One of their employees was having an email affair with another employee, who was married. The manager screened their email and showed it to the married guy's wife!" When the married man sued his manager and MacDonald's for breach of privacy, the courts ruled that the manager was within his rights to view employee email.

And, as the cyber-population booms ...we can expect to see more irate spouses filing for divorce with on-line infidelity as grounds. "It's inevitable that we're going to be seeing more & more divorce cases as a result of cybersex," says Salisbury. "There's such an enormous amount--and variety--of activity going on the Net and the Web, and the variety increases literally every day." -- HOW TO HAVE CYBERSEX - Gloria G. Brame

"It's a trap. Your imagination fills in the blanks with exactly what you want. You don't learn more with more rounds of writing. All you do is invest more emotional energy, for which there is no payoff." -- Joe Teig, New York, NY


FROM PROFESSIONALS:

"We now understand that women & men are not "crazy" or "defective" when, in response to trauma, they develop PTSD symptoms, including insomnia, flashbacks, phobias, panic attacks, anxiety, depression, dissociation, a numbed toughness, amnesia, shame, guilt, self-loathing, self-mutilation and social withdrawal. - Phyllis Chesler, MD

"We hear about Internet predators for children, I don't think we're hearing very much about Internet predators for middle age women at all. And that bothers me," -- SANDRA PHIPPS, FightBigamy

"When [] predators are found using the Internet a common response of the Internet industry and government officials is to blame someone else, or say that nothing can be done to stop it." -- Donna M. Hughes, PhD; Univ. of Rhode Island

"We must do whatever it takes to minimize or eliminate [the predator's] access to vulnerable prey as targets of opportunity. Period. For ever. Indeed, these people will thank us for it. Consider how many [cyberpaths] deliberately get themselves caught just to stop themselves." - What Makes Narcissists Tick

"[APOLOGIES] are not some pious, phoney-baloney, half-hearted rendition of what you think they want to hear. Nor is it a watered-down, politically correct 'confession' that you think will buy you closure at the expense of truth... [admit] what you are doing to screw up your life. This also means admitting that you are getting payoffs for what you're doing, however sick or subtle those payoffs are. - Dr. Phil McGraw"

"[Online Predators] count on our shame to keep their secrets. They know that exposing them means exposing our own failings. That's what makes them so powerful. They manipulate us into these situations then sit back & watch us squirm between protecting ourselves or blowing the whistle. The [victim often] is still emotionally connected to the [Cyberpath], thus protecting them and accusing them alternatively. Many [victim]s will not name their [cyberpath]s to counsellors or other helpers, thus protecting their identity. The hook, which the [Cyberpath] has implanted in their heart, is hard to remove. If you want something to cry about, cry for the [Cyberpath]'s new victim(s), the innocent, unmarked, un-inoculated prey. These victims are carefully chosen..." - Mary Ann Borg Cunen

"Internet dating is populated, to a large degree, by criminals and married people. Estimates have gone up to 30% that online daters are married. That represents an emotional risk to our membership base. I want to eliminate those people [from] the site." - Herb Vest, CEO of True.com

"How do we go from fantasy to reality? Lots of people have private fantasies that give them some sort of pleasure and maybe even trouble them, but they don't act on them. I think one of the contributory facts-- it's not the only one-- is the insidious nature of the internet itself. I think there are three things that are problematic about the Internet, or at least three things. One is the easy accessibility. You don't, in the beginning at least, have to go anywhere. You just push a button that's sitting there next to you.
Secondly, there's this illusion of anonymity, which can be very disinhibiting. You feel as though you're there in the privacy of your bedroom. It's not that private, but you don't sense that at the time. And thirdly, there is a distortion of reality and fantasy to some extent. That people feel as though they're playing a game. They're making up who they are. They wonder if someone else is giving a false persona. They begin to do things that in the light of day they might never have done and then, ultimately and sadly, sometimes cross a line that they might not otherwise have crossed. Where do they get the message [the internet] is where you can go? We've created a "we versus they" mentality. And I understand that what they do is offensive. It's aggravating. It makes me angry. But we're not going to solve the problem by pushing it further underground." - Dr. Fred Berlin, Psychiatrist, Johns Hopkins University on "DATELINE NBC"

"I love words. I believe in the power of words. I believe that if truthful words are spoken, written, shared, they will be heard, and they will be answered. Not with a [cyberpath]. You get sucker-punched in trying to explain something. There is no response to what is said. Words are deflected, twisted, questions answered with questions, non sequitors abound." - NarcissisticAbuse.com

"This is the classic emotional rape scenario: the use of a higher emotion (such as love) to fulfill a hidden agenda... There can be no hidden agendas in real love. These features, even if identified in retrospect, can help victims understand what has happened to them, giving them a chance of real recovery. - Dr. Mike Fox, The Emotional Rape Syndrome

"Powerful and sneaky people use apologies as end runs around repentance. They betray a trust; and, when they have been found out, they say they are sorry for "mistakes in judgement"... They get by only because we have lost our sense of the difference between repentance for wrong and apologies for bungling... We should not let each other get away with it. A deep and unfair hurt is not a mere faux pas. We cannot put up with everything from everyone; some things are intolerable. When someone hurts us deeply and unfairly an apology will not do the job; it only trivializes a wrong that should not be trifled with." -- - Lewis B. Smedes, "Forgive and Forget"

"The [exposed Cyberpath] on the other hand, cannot rest until they have blotted out a vaguely experienced [target] who dared to oppose them, [expose them], to disagree with them or to outshine them. [The Cyberpath] can never find rest because they can NEVER FULLY wipe out the evidence that has contradicted their conviction they are unique and perfect and handled things appropriately. This archaic rage goes on and on and on." - Dr. Ernest Wolf "

"Text-based relationships are very deceptive. People know only the good stuff, and none of the bad. The missing pieces are filled in based on hope, not on reality."- Dr. S. King; Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in Palo Alto, CA

"When there is a question of WHO is telling the truth? See who has to GAIN by lying or bending history. Usually the real truth teller has to expose a vulnerable part of themselves, which takes courage and honesty." - Law Professor, Fordham University


FINAL THOUGHTS

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Pubgoers Urged to Help Find 'Love Rat' Thief

(U.K.) Pubgoers are being urged to help trace a man police have labelled a "love rat" who befriended a woman, then sold her car.

The woman, from Easington, County Durham, met the man calling himself Jamie Patterson, on a dating web site. But on the day he was due to move in with her and her teenage daughter, he sold her car and vanished.

Posters are now being placed in pubs in Newcastle, where Durham Police believe the man may live. The incident happened in October, but so far police have been unable to trace the man, who is in his 40s and has a number of distinctive tattoos.

A Durham Police spokeswoman described him as a "love rat" and added: "This was a single woman in her 40s who was looking for friendship and took this man at face value.

On 26 October, 2011 she contacted us to report her green Ford Fiesta stolen."

"It later transpired she had been befriended by this man on a dating website, and within a few weeks their relationship had become serious enough for him to start leaving belongings at her house. Jamie said he would drop the woman at her place of work in Sunderland, following which he would go to his home address in Newcastle and pick up more of his things. However, he failed to pick her up and she could not get an answer from his mobile phone. She got a taxi home and, because her house keys and car keys were on the same key ring, she needed to smash a window to get into her own home. She found all of his clothes gone and documentation for the car which showed it had been sold for about £1,000. Luckily we managed to recover the vehicle, but so far we have not been able to trace the man."

Police said the man is in his 40's, of stocky build and bald. He also has some distinctive tattoos, including the names Melisa and Keighley on his arm.

original article here

Married Con Man Uses PlentyofFish for Affair

By Patricia Kane

(U.K.) As Victoria Fraenzel logged on to the internet dating site for the first time, she was uncertain what response she would receive to her request for a man who would offer her ‘truth and honesty’. Yet within hours of keying her details into the popular website Plenty Of Fish, the 35-year-old was not disappointed with the response.

Darren Upton, a wealthy accountant in his late 30s, quickly got in touch and within days had charmed his way into her life and, soon after, her bed. They had an 18-month affair as he lavished expensive gifts on her, including a £3,000 Cartier watch, designer dresses by film-star favourite Amanda Wakeley and a Mercedes sports car.

Last week, however, Upton was finally exposed as a conman and jailed for six years for stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds from his clients so he could live a life of luxury.

Today Victoria tells how she foolishly fell for Upton’s lies, of the lifestyle they both enjoyed during their fling and her feelings of betrayal at discovering he was not single, as he had claimed, but married. His wife even had a daughter by him during their affair.

Victoria also reveals her shock at the extent of his fraud and of her anger at being labelled ‘greedy’ as the main beneficiary of his embezzled funds. She said: ‘I’ve been made out to be a terrible hussy who had thousands of pounds lavished on her by a married man. But I am not that sort of person. I’m not grasping or greedy. I didn’t ask him for anything. I just wanted to be with him. It was never about the money or the sex.’

Close to tears, she added: ‘After a series of bad relationships, I just wanted someone who wanted to give me a hug and love me. Darren appeared to be that man. I had finally found someone who seemed to genuinely care about me and made me feel special. He was kind and caring. That’s all I wanted – but it was all a lie.’

In total, the accountant cheated 33 clients by not passing to the taxman £500,000 they had paid him. On Thursday, at Leeds Crown Court, he admitted 15 fraud offences between January 2010 and June last year. He also asked for 23 similar offences to be taken into consideration.

Passing sentence, Judge Sally Cahill QC said the crimes were committed for ‘pure selfish greed’. She told him: ‘You were thoroughly dishonest and motivated by greed. This was a gross breach of trust, it was planned from the offset and fraudulent from the offset. I consider this to be professional offending at a high level.’

For Victoria, now 36, the last eight months since discovering the truth have been filled with remorse and self-reproach at being duped so easily. She thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with Upton, with plans to ‘retire’ to the Bahamas in October, where he claimed to have a beachside property.

‘He told me we would get married and we would be happy there together,’ said Victoria. ‘I had no idea he already had a wife and a daughter who had been born during our relationship. I was shocked beyond words when I finally discovered the truth. I’m still struggling to take in the extent of his lies. Nothing in his behaviour ever made me suspicious. I feel very stupid now but I believed everything he said.’

This was not Victoria’s first ‘bad experience’ with men. One of her former partners was Bryan Garvey – who had shared an £18.5 million National Lottery jackpot with four other winners before she met him. ‘My relationship with Bryan ended acrimoniously and it took nearly four years before I thought of looking for someone else,’ she said.

‘Once bitten, twice shy, so it was a really big decision for me to start dating again, and I thought an internet site might help me find someone more compatible. It was my first time on the site and on my posting, I remember saying I was looking for “truth, honesty… a real person”.

‘I cringe now looking back because hindsight is a wonderful thing. Darren got in touch within hours and after a couple of days of online chat, we agreed to meet in a pub in Preston. I remember him sending me a photograph at one point and I saw a wedding ring on his finger. When I said, “That looks like you’re married,” he replied that he’d been engaged but it was now over.’

Meeting him for the first time, however, was a shock for 6ft Victoria – who was a model in her teenage years. She explained: ‘I’m not unattractive and I’m used to dating good-looking men, so it was a bit of a shock to meet Darren in the flesh. My first impression was that he was ugly but his banter and charm made me see him in a different light and in the end I agreed to meet him again.’

They met a few days later, again in Preston, and this time, keen to impress, he picked her up in his Bentley with personalised number plates DJU. The court would hear that Upton had also already bought his wife, Tina, a Maserati. He had also splashed out on a £10,000 box at Leeds United Football Club and even spent £3,000 on a model railway.

Within a few dates, Upton would whisk Victoria off to his £500,000 penthouse flat in an upmarket area of Leeds, overlooking the River Aire and the city skyline. Exquisitely decorated with white leather sofas and state-of-the-art home-entertainment equipment, including a large plasma TV, Upton told her he lived there alone.

As the relationship became more intimate, Upton’s gifts became more lavish. He bought her a Cartier watch, as well as diamond earrings, and several thousands of pounds worth of designer clothes and accessories from Harvey Nichols, including a number of Mulberry handbags. In one shopping spree alone, he blew more than £2,000 on two dresses by Amanda Wakeley – a favourite of Charlize Theron, Scarlett Johansson and Kate Winslet.

From October 2010, he also began paying £800-a-month rent on another apartment in Salford, Greater Manchester, where Victoria would sometimes stay with him when she was not at her own home in nearby Altrincham. He gave her a bank card with a £500 limit to buy anything for the flat.

The couple ate at the best restaurants in Manchester, such as San Carlo and Rosso, favourites of Premier League footballers. They had been dating for about six months when a smitten Upton bought Victoria a black Mercedes sports car.

She said: ‘He had been talking about it for some time. I was gobsmacked at his generosity but if he said he would get me something, he always did. He had the car delivered to my home. I just jumped into the car in excitement and went for a drive. Now I know he was a conman but at that time I loved him more than ever.’ For Victoria it was not an entirely new lifestyle, having grown up with indulgent, wealthy parents on a sprawling farm near Blackburn.

At an early age, she had learned to ride horses and was a competitive showjumper before turning her back on the sport in her teens. When her father committed suicide eight years ago, he left Victoria independently wealthy and with no need to rely on Upton’s generosity. She said: ‘It really angers me that people might think I was desperate for him to spend all this money on me and that I was in the relationship to gain financially. I didn’t need him to buy me any of those things. It was nice, of course, and he wanted to do it. But if I’d known it was all paid for with stolen money, I would never have touched him or his gifts.’

As her relationship with Upton deepened, he began to be more careless, even taking her along to his offices – while his wife was off work nursing their baby daughter – for sex sessions during working hours.

She recalled: ‘The staff all knew who I was yet they never said a word to his wife. We had sex pretty much everywhere in his office: on the desk, on the floor, anywhere we could make it exciting. I was so happy to be with someone who was so caring and considerate. He never mentioned a wife and certainly not his new baby daughter. One of the memories that turns my stomach now is when we were out one night at dinner and he produced some photographs of a baby girl. He told me she was his new niece – but in fact it was his own daughter, who was just a few months old. Later he sent more photographs of her to my phone. That makes me really angry now to think that he would deny his own daughter as well as betraying his wife.’

Victoria would remain in ignorance until June last year when, unable to get through to Upton on his mobile phone one day, she rang his office.

‘I asked if Darren was there and a secretary said, “I’ll let you speak to his wife” and transferred the call. I felt numb with shock. Tina Upton [who was also the company secretary] answered and told me Darren was being questioned by police over financial irregularities. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Not only was I having to take in that he had a wife I hadn’t known anything about, but he was in some sort of financial trouble. Then, without asking me outright if I was Darren’s mistress, Tina suddenly said that she’d suspected her husband was having an affair for some time but “had not pursued it”.

‘I felt distraught and hung up. Soon afterwards, I got a visit from police at the apartment in Manchester. They confirmed what I now knew – that Darren was married and had committed fraud. My Mercedes was taken away and the apartment lease terminated. It was a nightmare of unimaginable proportions and the man I had thought better than all the others who had gone before, turned out to be the biggest b*****d of the lot. How could he do this to a woman who had just given birth to his child? I would never have started seeing him if I had known the truth. It’s despicable.’

‘I felt very foolish. How could I have been so hoodwinked? Life had come crashing down and I found out this wonderful man who had made me feel so complete was already married with a child and had cheated those poor people out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. It was horrendous. Not only did I feel sorry for them but I felt very sorry for his wife. She’s the true victim. How could he do this to a woman who had just given birth to his child? I would never have started seeing him if I had known the truth. It’s despicable.’

The subsequent investigation discovered the total value of Upton’s fraud was £532,000. The firm had about 800 clients, mainly small computer companies, and instead of paying his clients’ corporation tax to the taxman, Upton diverted the cash into his own account. His clients even ended up having to pay penalties for unpaid tax when his crimes were exposed.

Upton had previously been investigated and forced to pay compensation for an unauthorised investment scheme but had continued to commit offences when he was on bail.

Victoria did not attend court last week, having now washed her hands of Upton. She said: ‘I couldn’t bear it. It has brought back too many painful memories. But I want people to know I am not to blame for any of this. I didn’t make him do any of it. He lied to me too.’

The prosecution said many of the clients he deceived felt betrayed as they regarded him as a friend. Other victims said their businesses had been left close to collapse and they had suffered ill health.

Upton’s defence team claimed he made a legitimate annual profit of £250,000, but began offending because he was forced to repay £840,000 to the Financial Services Authority in monthly instalments of £10,000 over the earlier investment scheme, which had not led to criminal charges. Not prepared to cut back on his lifestyle, he then started to misappropriate clients’ funds.

Victoria was never investigated by police, who accepted she had no knowledge of where the funds were coming from. Heartbroken by Upton’s deception, she has attempted to move on, and has thrown her energy into building up her own beauty business. She also had brief relationships with two international footballers since her relationship with Upton ended. Despite everything he has put her through, however, Victoria cannot bring herself to hate Upton.

She said: ‘He hasn’t done me any real harm – he was always a true gentleman to me and I will always remember that about him. He has been described as arrogant but I never saw that side of him. But what he did to his clients, as well as his wife and daughter, was unforgivable. He deserves to be in prison for what he did to them.

original article here

Another Online "Love" Connection Turns Ugly

By NBC10 Investigators

View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.

Kristy Gaffney says she thought she’d found love when she met a man online. Now the Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania woman claims she’s in the battle of her life – fighting for the child they had.

“I thought like he was Mr. Perfect, ha, ha,” Gaffney told NBC10 Investigator Harry Hairston. “There’s no words for it. I’m just so angry at him.”

Gaffney says she met a man who told her he was Ed while surfing a popular dating website. The single mother, who is 29, says at first she was standoffish, but eventually warmed up to meeting him at a public place. Gaffney says that first date was at a restaurant just outside of Philadelphia and it led to many more dates and an intimate relationship.

Gaffney says her new love interest told her he was a businessman, divorced, worked for the C.I.A. and was related to one of the most well-known, wealthiest families in the country.

“He said, ‘My last name is Dupont,’ and I’m like, okay. And I said, ‘related to the Duponts?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’” Gaffney says eventually Ed started talking about wedding bells. “He also was talking about having kids. He said he never could have kids because him and his wife, she couldn’t get pregnant,” Gaffney says.

As their relationship continued, Gaffney got pregnant. She says at first Ed demanded she get an abortion and then changed his mind. After the baby was born, Gaffney says Ed asked her to sign some papers that would ensure he could claim his rights as the baby’s father. Gaffney says although she didn’t understand the paperwork, she signed it anyway and the two shared caring for the baby while Ed rehabbed his home so they could all live together as a family.

One day, Ed didn’t return their child as planned. Instead, Gaffney says he dropped this bombshell:

“That’s when he told me that the paperwork I actually signed was me giving up the rights, not to him to have his rights. It was me giving up my rights so his wife could adopt my baby, and I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

As it turned out, Ed wasn’t Ed Dupont. He was Emmitt Dippold, who was still married and he and his wife were in the final stages of adopting the baby.

“I couldn’t even believe that someone was capable of something like that,” Gaffney says. She took Dippold and his wife to court to get the adoption overturned.

We reached out to Dippold at his office and his home for his side of the story, but were not able to speak with him. In court documents, Dippold denied that he ever claimed to be a Dupont and says Gaffney may have assumed that because his email reads ‘ew-dupont.’ Dippold denied that he ever wanted Gaffney to have an abortion and denied that he ever talk about marriage. He said Gaffney should have known all along that he was married because pictures of he and his wife were in plain view the times he and Gaffney were in his home together.

In the end, the Judge believed Gaffney and overturned the adoption based on fraud. But the fight isn’t over because the Dippolds filed an appeal. Dippold’s attorney declined comment for our story, saying it’s inappropriate to talk about pending custody and adoption matters.

original article here

Online Dating Hunting Grounds for Romance Fraudster

A Ghanaian man accused of posing as a US soldier on an online dating site has been arrested on suspicion of conning a British woman into sending £271,000 to Africa.

In what is thought to be the biggest case of its kind so far, police detained Maurice Asola Fadola, 31, who is thought to be behind a series of "romance frauds" – targeting women through dating sites, and fabricating an elaborate series of stories to convince them to send money to Ghana.

The British victim, who did not want to be named, struck up a relationship over the internet with a man she believed to be an American soldier serving in Iraq.

After several months of correspondance, in which he told of his life dodging bullets and bombs, he told her that he was leaving the army – and perhaps they could meet up. But while his luggage was being returned to the US, there were a series of "problems" which the British woman was enticed into helping out – to the eventual cost of £271,000.

The head of the Ghanaian Serious Fraud Office described Mr Fadola as a suspected "kingpin", and his arrest after months of painstaking intelligence gathering is the high point of a joint Ghanaian-British campaign against alleged romance frauds.

Last month officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) travelled to the Ghanaian capital of Accra to work alongside Ghanaian police in arresting Mr Fadola.

Officers had planned to mount a "sting" operation; setting traps for when he came to collect money they had sent to a money transfer service, or lying in wait for him to pick up a parcel of laptops or mobile phones from the Post Office.

Police froze his bank accounts, and when he came into the Serious Fraud Office in Accra to try and brazen his way into releasing the funds, he was arrested.

Mr Fadola, who lived in a luxurious mansion on the outskirts of Accra, is being held in custody and questioned over money laundering and passport offences, which carry a maximum sentence of 25 years.

Colin Woodcock, head of SOCA's fraud department, said that his team was working alongside Ghanaian authorities, sharing policing techniques with local forces to track down the fraudsters.

"At first we thought it was just people sending £50 here or there," he said, "but although the bulk are small frauds, now we know that some people are being robbed of hundreds of thousands.

"It's an international problem, involving police forces from across the globe working together to squeeze the criminals."

More and more cases of romance fraud are being discovered.

In August last year Philip Hunt, 58, threw himself under a train after losing £82,000 in a romance fraud. He had met a Nigerian girl on the internet, who convinced him to spend the money with promises of starting a life together.

"These people are out to get people when they are very vulnerable. They're in there like vultures," Lesley Smith, Mr Hunt's former partner, told the inquest into his death.

Mr Woodcock said: "The bottom line is: don't give anyone your money. Imagine you'd met someone in a pub for the first time, and they said I'd love to see you again but can you buy me a laptop?

"We're seeing an explosion in this. Everyone is on online dating nowadays, and criminals have cottoned onto it. These people destroy lives. It's loss on a catastrophic scale."

2 of EOPC's examples:
Nathan Ernest Burl Thomas, Jr.
Doug Beckstead

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

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