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Author: Varun (---.146.202.68.cfl.rr.com)
Date: 04-24-04 14:29
Hello everyone,
I have been reading messages in this forum and thought I should contribute because I have been corresponding with ladies from Eastern Europe for a while now, and while there are many real girls out there, I agree that most of the younger women who respond are frauds.
Many people seem to wonder how to best avoid scammers and here are some suggestions.
1) Get her full name and address as soon as you feel she will be comfortable with the request, you can say that you want to make sure not to lose touch with each other. As soon as you get her address you can use a delivery service to send flowers, and many of them offer to take a photo of the girl for a small additional cost. Sure it costs money to send flowers but my time is too valuable to waste on someone who is simply trying to scam me. I've only tried this once but the delivery service was able to confirm that the address did not exist.
2) It's a good idea to send a quick response the first time, say you are not able to write much now for whatever reason, and that you will write more later. If it is a scam you'll get the same automated reply as if you had written a full letter to her.
3) Ask some very specific questions, you won't get answers, and then mention that you didn't get the answer in the next email and ask again. You still wont get answers, even for the most basic questions.
4) Whatever you do be sure to begin the email differently each time because if they usually don't read the full email. You want to keep the girl playing along to waste the persons time.
5) be careful of profile names or email addresses which use odd combinations of letters and numbers which make no sense. A real person would use some creative word or a number which has some significance such as their birthday, etc.
7) Ask for her number whenever you feel she will be comfortable to speak with you. If it is a scammer they will come on very strong so it will seem odd if they don't want to "hear your voice". When you call if someone actually answers that knows who you are and is familiar with the correspondence you have had with her, you're lucky so far!
6) I hate to say it but at this point I look for reasons why the girl must not be a scammer instead of trying to find reason why she might be a scammer. If the girl is under 25, very attractive with model like photos, and very emotional without much personal detail, you can pretty much bet it will be a fraud.
7) The obvious signs of a scammer:
a) Doesn't use your name
b) doesn't give too many specific personal details
c) doesn't answer your specific questions
The reasons for the above warning signs are because they are writing to so many guys who are replying from various web sites that it would be too difficult to keep track of very personal details. Also they usually use form letters (pre-written), so everyone is getting the same procession of letters. Some more signs of scammers:
d) seems to come on strong, letters are a lot of gushing romantic fluff and nonsense such as her dreams and poems she wants to share with you. The letters lack any substance and don't give many specific details.
e) mentions situations which would require her to be needy for money early on.
f) asks for money for any reason.
Some of the best scammers actually have real girls pretending to be the beautiful women in the photos, and they will also send you more photos, sometimes even of the supposed girl as a child, etc. so they can be very tricky. There was a girl I actually spoke to on the phone a few times, but I eventually caught her when I tried to send flowers. The only other warning signs I had with this girl were that they were many discrepancies in the things that she wrote to me in the course of one month. She was also trying to convince me to pay for English lessons to improve her English for the day that we met. She didn't ask me directly but she made it very appealing for me to offer to pay for it. I actually considered it before I sent the flowers, and actually spoke to a lady who pretended to be the private English tutor. And the prices she quoted were accurate. I've had two girls confess to be scammers to me in the last few months, and they really make full use of free sites such as this one.
The bottom line is that in order to make it more difficult for the scammers we should all play along with these people. I have sent the same letter over and over to the same people just to watch their scam unfold. Why not? If they are trying to scam me, the least I can do is waste their time and frustrate them as much as possible so they will have less time to scam someone else.
So I ask everyone to play along with these people and maybe eventually they will get frustrated enough to find another scam.
Good luck everyone!
Varun
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