A big part of healthy online dating and healthy online romance and friendships can begin with healthy choices for friends. The first step to this is knowing how to spot scammers and fakes quickly and easily so that no time is wasted on them. This is also a very important first step to learning to become more anonymous and in creating a more safe and secure internet for everyone. Romance scams are the second most common type of scam affecting users in the United States as is reported by the referenced article(1). The better we get at noticing them and exposing them as a community the harder it will be for them to continue their business.
SIGNS OF A FAKE:
1) blonde
2) wants to talk on google hangouts (a lot of online prostitutes and scammers use this)
3) very little information on her profile
4) sexy lingerie pics on her facebook or other profile
5) very little unique info on her profile
6) Easy to get
7) Has very structured conversations
8) Will act manipulative when they are trying to fool you into their scam.
9) WILL PROMISE TO MEET IN PERSON OR GIVE HOPE FOR IT WHEN ATTEMPTING THEIR SCAM
"We are friends" "Do this favor for me as a friend" "We will be able to meet in person after you help me with this."
Sometimes they will ask for money to cover medical expenses or their plane ticket to go meet you. Sometimes they will want to send you money. NEVER ACCEPT MONEY FROM ANYONE ON THE INTERNET. Nigerian scammers who promise to send you money make $700,000 according to this news report below.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/nigerian-prince-scams-still-rake-in-over-700000-dollars-a-year.html
If someone wants to send you money tell them to put it in a Gofundme or something like that. Gofundme donations are public. People will sometimes do scams where they send you money and then manipulate the money or the bank then ask them to send the money back and then tell your bank that you stole the money or something
-WHY GOOGLE HANGOUTS?-
A LOT OF SCAMMERS USE GOOGLE HANGOUTS BECAUSE THEY CAN EASILY SEND MESSAGES TO MANY PEOPLE ON IT AT THE SAME TIME AND SEND THEM MESSAGES WITHOUT HAVING TO SEND A FRIEND REQUEST.
Strictly by personal judgement I would say that 99% of women wanting to talk on Google hangouts are scammers or online prostitutes. Girls who use google hangouts are most of the time involved in scams especially when they are very beautiful and kind and easy to get.
If you really want to talk to her just check to see if she is real first by doing a video call or by asking her the right questions. If she is fake she will likely change the topic on you and refuse to answer some of your questions. #endporno #endabuse Technical sidenote on using IP addresses to spot fake profiles : Finding out how to trace someone's IP address could be very useful in identifying scams. It is often the case that people with fake profiles will lie about which country they are from. I do not know how to do this. I am just saying that it could be a very very useful thing to know how to do. you could also do that to have someone prove that they are not fake. They could send you a screenshot of their ip address. They can spoof their ip and use a fake one easily with a vpn, but it's a good start at least and could weed out perhaps 30-80%(just a personal estimate) of the fakes. You could ask them to send you a screenshot of their ip address displayed on a website like https://whatsmyip.com/ alongside a screenshot of your conversation. Screenshots can easily be faked, but this is a good start and perhaps other similar ideas could be developed. You could also ask someone to connect to a service which will not work well if they are using a vpn or ask them to ping a server that is in the country they claim to be in. If they were to perform such tasks on a website you trust or on your own site or server then that could help you prove their origin. Such a system would have to be set up and could be very effective in improving the credibility of online dating profile verification approaches being used by Tinder and other online dating systems. Sufficiently technical users could still find ways to fool the verification system, but (1) https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/nigerian-prince-scams-still-rake-in-over-700000-dollars-a-year.html
If you really want to talk to her just check to see if she is real first by doing a video call or by asking her the right questions. If she is fake she will likely change the topic on you and refuse to answer some of your questions. #endporno #endabuse Technical sidenote on using IP addresses to spot fake profiles : Finding out how to trace someone's IP address could be very useful in identifying scams. It is often the case that people with fake profiles will lie about which country they are from. I do not know how to do this. I am just saying that it could be a very very useful thing to know how to do. you could also do that to have someone prove that they are not fake. They could send you a screenshot of their ip address. They can spoof their ip and use a fake one easily with a vpn, but it's a good start at least and could weed out perhaps 30-80%(just a personal estimate) of the fakes. You could ask them to send you a screenshot of their ip address displayed on a website like https://whatsmyip.com/ alongside a screenshot of your conversation. Screenshots can easily be faked, but this is a good start and perhaps other similar ideas could be developed. You could also ask someone to connect to a service which will not work well if they are using a vpn or ask them to ping a server that is in the country they claim to be in. If they were to perform such tasks on a website you trust or on your own site or server then that could help you prove their origin. Such a system would have to be set up and could be very effective in improving the credibility of online dating profile verification approaches being used by Tinder and other online dating systems. Sufficiently technical users could still find ways to fool the verification system, but (1) https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/nigerian-prince-scams-still-rake-in-over-700000-dollars-a-year.html
