Can You Really Trust The Person That You Are Dating Online?

Heather is a 42 year old American lady.Divorced with two children,she
decided to try online dating to possibly get a new partner.
She signed up with one of the popular dating sites and set up a
profile.The anonymity and security of online dating appealed to her and
she hoped it would work out for her.

In a matter of days, she was contacted by a man who also claimed to be
looking for a love relationship.The man was handsome,also divorced and
in his mid-forties.

He claimed to be an engineer living in the United States, but was sent
on an assignment by his company to Nigeria.

They began to chat and exchange mails, and soon began a relationship
online.He sent flowers to her from time to time, sent poems everyday,
called her up twice a day.

Heather felt that she had finally found the man of her dreams.
Surely,this was the perfect relationship that she had wanted since her
divorce.

Here was a man who was caring and who showed it.
She readily agreed to his proposal when he called her over the phone
and asked her to marry him.

They began to make plans to get married as soon as he returned to the
United States.

Heather felt all was going on well with their plans until he made a
distress call.He had been involved in a road accident and had been
hospitalized.

Could she help out with some money to pay the bills?
Well,she did help.

A sequence of events followed afterwards.

Weeks later, she discovered that the man she had fallen in love with
was not the real person she had thought he was.She had just been taken by
the newest form of online scams that is just showing up–the romance or
dating scam.

She was heartbroken.She had lost thousands of dollars to this man.She
was behind on her mortgage and was in debt to the bank. But painful as
the experience was,it could not be compared to the emotional pain that
she had to go through.

It would take many months before she would get over the whole
experience, which she described as a nightmare.

Heather is not the only one that is a victim of this new form of
scam.Many thousands of people online are losing millions of dollars monthly
to these scams.

But due to the secretive nature of the internet, most people
that have been scammed this way are either too embarrassed or ashamed to
talk about their experience.

In a particular finding, 145 men and women reported that they lost over
$1 million in two months in 2005. In that same finding, thousands of
people refused to disclose any information about their losses.

The worst aspect of these scams has been the emotional pains the
victims have had to go through.
Many of the victims I talked with reported that it took them many
months before they could get back to their normal life.

A lady told me that she cried for many nights after she realized that
she had been scammed.

She had thought she had the ideal lover,and had become so emotionally
attached to him.

Realizing that it was all a lie was devastating to her.
The fact that she had been in deep love with a fake person was what
pained her the most.

This is the same experience as many of the victims I related with have
had.The effects of the scams have had so much of a devastating effect
on them all.

Medical doctors, lawyers,paralegals and other professionals have been
known to lose money to these scams just as housewives, students, factory
workers and other low-income earners have.

The scams are no respecter of status or race.
Not even religious people have been spared from this growing menace.

Till this moment, thousands of people are out there trying to get over
these scams .

But even as those who have been scammed are trying to get on with their
lives, many more thousands are being set up for a scam right now.

Online dating has come to stay with us all, and many people have found
true love through this avenue.

Online dating has produced many successful love stories. It is a medium
that if properly used ,with the right education, can be a means of
bringing love into the lives of many.

However, it is apparent that it is also increasingly being used for the
wrong purposes.

Given the high success rate of the scams however, the best way to deal
with them is to educate yourself about them.

You need to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Knowing the
methods that the scammers use will help you not to fall for their
antics.

You will be able to know what to do to protect yourself and still be
able to date successfully.

As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure.