Saturday, November 26, 2011

How to Find Full Headers and Track IP Addresses in Email

Hi.  Just a brief reminder to check our Squidoo site regularly as that is where the most updates happen in information to help you learn how to be safe online from romance scams.  
The most current updates include instructions on how to find full headers and track IP addresses in emails you receive.  These instructions, along with other helpful information can be found here.
At our Squidoo site you will not only find helpful, educational information, but you will also find some fun activities to do such as taking polls.  We would really appreciate it if you would all vote on the polls.  They are completely anonymous.  
 There is also a place where you can briefly tell your story about what happened to you.  This is also completely anonymous.  
If you are on Twitter, you can join us on the Squidoo site in Twitter Storm.  

Why, you may ask, do we have all this going on at a website separate from our main chat room website?  Squidoo is a very special place online where we are able to possibly make a little money to help defray the costs of the chat website and domain name.  This is a much better method of taking care of keeping us online than to have one or two members footing the bills all the time.  How does this work?  It's simple.  There are products listed on the site that are for sale through Amazon.com and all those products are related to online dating scams.  So if you were to go to Amazon.com to buy a book about romance scams, instead of buying it directly from Amazon, you can buy it from our Squidoo site.  Squidoo itself also places ads on our site and we get a portion of all sales through those ads.  This way we get some of the profit.  It's not much, but every little bit helps. 
We also see Squidoo as a site that offers some additional fun activities.  When you visit our Squidoo site, you can also find, in addition to the previously mentioned activities, various YouTube videos showing romance scammers in action, and other romance scam videos on YouTube.  We also have some YouTube videos of some of our chat room music we like to share together.

Be sure to click the Facebook like button when you visit.  Also click the thumbs up button as both of those actions boost our points and helps us earn awards that boost our ranking in Squidoo as well as in the search engines.  One thing to know, however.  If you do click the Facebook like button, your Facebook name and profile picture will show on the Squidoo page and the link to our page will show on your wall.  Liking us does not link you to having been scammed.  It only shows that you appreciate what we are trying to do to help others.  You can also post comments on our page.  

We, at Scams of the Heart (SOTH) are family.  We want to be there for each other, and we want to be there for those who come in newly hurt by these criminals.  What we want to do with Squidoo is take the burden of the cost of our chat room off the shoulders of the one or two or three who help pay for it now.  Your regular visits help us.  Your thumbs up, your votes on the polls, the videos you watch, and especially any products you might order through our site all go toward helping us keep SOTH online.  Besides, it's fun as well as informative!  

If you have any suggestions for topics to post on the Squidoo site, please leave us a comment here, or on Squidoo, or email us at info@scamsoftheheart.org  
Thanks!
cp

Monday, November 21, 2011

Thanksgiving Romance Scams


Thanksgiving is a special time for getting together with family and friends. Unfortunately, romance scammers know this and they use it to try to move closer to our hearts.  Promises of travels to meet for Thanksgiving abound and victims go to the airports and sit and wait...and wait...and wait...until they realize nobody is going to show up.  

Then the inevitable email shows up, or the text, or phone call.  There was a delay.  There was an accident. There was a customs issue.  Whatever the problem was, they need money...your money.  And only you can help them.  They will come up with all types of scenarios that left them stuck at the airport on their end, or in the hospital, or even in jail as some have claimed, and the only way they can get home to you is if you send them money.  They might even have you talk to someone else on their behalf.  It might be a customs official, a policeman, or doctor, or nurse.  It might be a lawyer.  It could be anyone they think you would believe to help make their story more plausible.  But no matter who they say they are, they are not real.  They are part of the ongoing scam and their ultimate goal is to get more money out of you.

You are there at the airport...or maybe by now you have gone back home, disappointed and heartbroken that your love is not going to be there with you for Thanksgiving as promised.  What do you do now? "Could everyone have been right?  Is this only a scam and not real at all?  How am I going to explain this to the rest of my family who is expecting to meet him/her? They tried to warn me that it was not real in the first place.  I was going to prove it to them.  I was going to get to introduce him/her to the family in person and they would know he/she was real.  Now I can't do that.  Now he/she isn't coming after all.  Maybe they were right and it was all fake.  What now?"  All these thoughts race through your mind combined with worries about the love of your dreams.  "Could they really be real and be in trouble like they claim to be?  What if they are real and need help?  What if I am right and everyone else is wrong?  What if he/she IS REAL?"

We are so sorry if this is happening to you right now.  Many of our members have been through exactly this kind of situation.  The emotions fill you with confusion and fear along with embarrassment that you have gotten in so deep into a possible romance scam.  You don't know which way to turn except that you have to decide if you are going to believe this person one more time and take a chance on sending more money.  How do you find out if he/she is real or a scammer?  Is there really any way to know the truth?

We can help you figure it out at Scams of the Heart 

We have the tools to find out the truth.  We will also teach you these tools so you can be safe online.  We also have experienced all these same emotions and situations caused by romance scams.  We will share our stories with you and help you deal with whatever is going on in your situation.  The truth is, real people do not ask for money from people they only know online.  They do have other options to get help if they need help other than to ask someone they have only spoken to online and/or by telephone.  Romance scammers play on our hopes and dreams and emotions to get money from us.  They often take even more from us than money. 

We hope you are not waiting for anyone at the airport this Thanksgiving holiday week.  But if you are, and they don't show up because of some scenario like the ones mentioned above, come check us out.  We can help you get through this.

cp

Sunday, November 13, 2011

A step forward!

We're very  excited at SOTH -- we ran our first ad on Facebook last night, and had many new visitors to the site.  Watching the numbers of people who actually clicked on the ad was exhilarating -- better than putting quarters in a slot machine!  The statistics say the ad reached more than 33,000 people, and 112 people actually clicked through.  The excitement is starting to build -- and we are gratified to be reaching new folks who've had their hope stolen and pocket books lightened by ghost scammers from far away places.

To those of you who are new to us, there is hope after being scammed.  You may not feel it now, but if you begin to open up to someone who has been down this road before, your burden will be lightened, and the shame will begin to lift.  The first step might very well be reaching out to us for help.  Come and chat with us at www.scamsoftheheart.org
/mw