Scam Warning Signs To Watch For
Protect yourself from scam and spam with these tips to recognize a non legit user.
Scammers are interested of:
- Getting your money
- Get you to commit financial fraud on their behalf
- Getting your email and photos to fraud others
Tactic that they use
Scammer pushes you for your personal information early-on. They may use the excuse that they cannot upload a photo to the site but want to email you some photos. Facts: If they can email a photo to you, they can email a photo to the site to be added to their profile for free. The scammer is creating email address lists which will be sold worldwide and used for all sorts of purposes. They may give you their email address and ask you to send photos to them of you and your family. If you do, they will have your email address and also your photos to use to convince other victims that they are 'real'. You may not get a further response because they have what they want from you.
Romance scams
A romance scam occurs when a stranger pretends romantic intentions, gains the affection of victims, and then uses that goodwill to gain access to their victims' money, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, email accounts, and/or national identification numbers or by getting the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf. The majority of scammers are located in Africa especially West Africa: Nigeria (Lagos), Senegal, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire; and Russia and Ukraine (for this reason, these areas are blocked from using MatchEbony, but some of them get around these blocks). This type of scam is very common on dating sites.
How to spot a scammer?
- Scammers use photos of models from modeling sites or from magazines.
- Scammers often ask for your email address right away, or give you theirs. They want to communicate off site as soon as possible. Beware they may be building email lists.
- The member has a hard luck story, they make you feel sorry for them, and they ask for help or money, or get you to offer it because you are 'such a nice person'.
- The member offers you money. They will do this to gain your trust. They will send counterfeit cashiers checks which will eventually bounce at your bank and get you into trouble.
- The member is from your country but travels for their job (working an oil rig, buying antiques, etc.). They have lost their ID and money and have been arrested or injured and urgently need money to get back home.
- The member is from Africa (especially Nigeria). There are large banks of computers with people paid to sit at the computer all day and scam innocent hard working people. It is a $100 million dollar business!! Africa is not within the MatchEbony membership area, but sometimes they slip through registration.
- The member is from Russia or Ukraine. There are agencies who enter large numbers of fake profiles on dating sites. They use good looking pictures of women to scam lovesick men into sending them money to come to their country or to help them with their personal or family problems. The scam could also include credit card fraud, excessive charges to an affiliated travel company, etc. The photo is a fake and is not the person you are writing to. The girls are not real and you will never see the person you are writing to.
- The member speaks or writes in very broken English. A lot of scammers will run their profiles through automated translators, and their profiles and emails will sound very strange.
- Scammers wants you to leave the site to use personal email or IM because “it's so much easier” – may actually state they will not accept responses through this dating site.
- Mail to you is often poetic, sing-songy, pretty words with no meaning, general flattery, generic, does not directly address questions or concerns you have voiced or remarks you have made, uses a lot of seductive or pet nicknames for you instead of your name. They keep things general so they can send the same letter to many people (mass mail).
- Scammers give you a lot of personal information right away making you comfortable and willing to share your own personal info with them. They will often make up a first and last name and put it in their profile, to make you feel safe. They will often use common names like "Greg Williams" or "Jane Smith" or "Kenneth Cole". If someone puts their first name and last name in a profile, it is probably a scammer!
- They vanishes mysteriously from the site, then reappears under a different name
- They might ask for your address under the guise of sending flowers or gifts. Never give out your address specially if you never met the person.
Remember to:
- Never send money
- Never give your personals info such as SSN, credit card number, address or passwords
- Never cash checks and never re-ship packages
Scammers are interested of:
- Getting your money
- Get you to commit financial fraud on their behalf
- Getting your email and photos to fraud others
Tactic that they use
Scammer pushes you for your personal information early-on. They may use the excuse that they cannot upload a photo to the site but want to email you some photos. Facts: If they can email a photo to you, they can email a photo to the site to be added to their profile for free. The scammer is creating email address lists which will be sold worldwide and used for all sorts of purposes. They may give you their email address and ask you to send photos to them of you and your family. If you do, they will have your email address and also your photos to use to convince other victims that they are 'real'. You may not get a further response because they have what they want from you.
Romance scams
A romance scam occurs when a stranger pretends romantic intentions, gains the affection of victims, and then uses that goodwill to gain access to their victims' money, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, email accounts, and/or national identification numbers or by getting the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf. The majority of scammers are located in Africa especially West Africa: Nigeria (Lagos), Senegal, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire; and Russia and Ukraine (for this reason, these areas are blocked from using MatchEbony, but some of them get around these blocks). This type of scam is very common on dating sites.
How to spot a scammer?
- Scammers use photos of models from modeling sites or from magazines.
- Scammers often ask for your email address right away, or give you theirs. They want to communicate off site as soon as possible. Beware they may be building email lists.
- The member has a hard luck story, they make you feel sorry for them, and they ask for help or money, or get you to offer it because you are 'such a nice person'.
- The member offers you money. They will do this to gain your trust. They will send counterfeit cashiers checks which will eventually bounce at your bank and get you into trouble.
- The member is from your country but travels for their job (working an oil rig, buying antiques, etc.). They have lost their ID and money and have been arrested or injured and urgently need money to get back home.
- The member is from Africa (especially Nigeria). There are large banks of computers with people paid to sit at the computer all day and scam innocent hard working people. It is a $100 million dollar business!! Africa is not within the MatchEbony membership area, but sometimes they slip through registration.
- The member is from Russia or Ukraine. There are agencies who enter large numbers of fake profiles on dating sites. They use good looking pictures of women to scam lovesick men into sending them money to come to their country or to help them with their personal or family problems. The scam could also include credit card fraud, excessive charges to an affiliated travel company, etc. The photo is a fake and is not the person you are writing to. The girls are not real and you will never see the person you are writing to.
- The member speaks or writes in very broken English. A lot of scammers will run their profiles through automated translators, and their profiles and emails will sound very strange.
- Scammers wants you to leave the site to use personal email or IM because “it's so much easier” – may actually state they will not accept responses through this dating site.
- Mail to you is often poetic, sing-songy, pretty words with no meaning, general flattery, generic, does not directly address questions or concerns you have voiced or remarks you have made, uses a lot of seductive or pet nicknames for you instead of your name. They keep things general so they can send the same letter to many people (mass mail).
- Scammers give you a lot of personal information right away making you comfortable and willing to share your own personal info with them. They will often make up a first and last name and put it in their profile, to make you feel safe. They will often use common names like "Greg Williams" or "Jane Smith" or "Kenneth Cole". If someone puts their first name and last name in a profile, it is probably a scammer!
- They vanishes mysteriously from the site, then reappears under a different name
- They might ask for your address under the guise of sending flowers or gifts. Never give out your address specially if you never met the person.
Remember to:
- Never send money
- Never give your personals info such as SSN, credit card number, address or passwords
- Never cash checks and never re-ship packages
