Creating a Three Step Online Safety Plan to Guard Against Romance Scammers

by Soraya Grant

Reading and printing out the main red flags of an online romance scammer is always a good safety precaution. Sometimes just having them next to you as a reminder can help you see them in online communications. Here are three more steps you can take as part of an online safety plan.

 

Establish a "no secrets" pact with someone you can trust

Team up with someone you know well and know offline. Make a promise that you will not keep any online friendships or relationships a secret from each other. When you meet someone new, make a note of where you met them, their screen name, and the age, gender, location, real name, career, picture or appearance details, and other basic information they give you. Text or email this information to your trusted confidant. As the online relationship progresses, keep your trusted offline person posted. This does not mean you need to email or text them every time you log on to the site or talk to your online friend, but you do need to tell them what type of relationship you are having with this person, how often you communicate with them, and any red flags or other suspicious details that may come up. The person you choose can be family member, close friend, roommate, or coworker, but it is absolutely vital that you choose someone you can be completely open and honest with about the nature of your online communications. If there is nobody in your life who you feel you can trust this way, talk about the issue with a therapist or other mental health professional and promise yourself you will tell them about any online relationships you may form. Although we are not people you know offline, Scams of the Heart members are also willing to listen to anyone who needs to talk about online friendships and share any concerns they may have.

Making sure you are open and honest with at least one other person helps combat the social isolation scammers often use to manipulate their victims. It can also be helpful to hear the views of someone who is not emotionally involved in the situation. They may be able to clearly see red flags you are not allowing yourself to see.

Make it an absolute rule that you will never send money, send items, do chores or errands involving money, or accept and/or reship packages from ANYONE you have not met offline and gotten to know well in at least one offline setting.

That's it. There are NO exceptions to this rule. It doesn't matter if you think this person may be your dream man or woman, if the two of you have shared secrets, or if the two of you have swapped explicit messages or photos. This rule is never broken. Anyone who really is a genuine and decent person will not ask for or hint for this type of favor from someone they only know online and anyone who does drop hints or makes outright requests for this type of favor is definitely a scammer. It doesn't matter if everything else the person tells you turns out to be completely true; if they are online pretending to date you, fall in love with you, become your best friend, or even have a crush on you when what they really want out of you is money, material goods, or favors, the situation is a scam.

Make a list of your own vulnerabilities.

This will be a journaling exercise. Open up a free online journal account or a new document on your computer desktop or buy a notebook if you prefer to write on paper. Those who are more visually oriented might want to make an offline collage or use a secret board on Pinterest or a photo album on Facebook set so that only they can see it. Whatever form you choose, it is important to be honest and balanced. This is neither a self-esteem building exercise where you only list or post your good qualities, nor is it a self improvement session where you write down your every flaw. Scammers prey on strengths, neutral details, and weaknesses.

Is there an issue you always want to help out with, such as children in need, domestic violence, or animal welfare? That is a wonderful trait, but it is also something a scammer could easily learn about you and attempt to exploit to get you to do their bidding. Do you have a crush on one or more celebrities or a specific physical type? There is nothing wrong with this, just make a note of it in case you find yourself tempted to overlook red flags because the person is "your dream guy/girl." Are you struggling with something right now? Do you have trouble seeing yourself as smart, fun, physically attractive, interesting, or kind?

Every human being has weaknesses and every scammer practices finding those weaknesses and using them to manipulate their victims. Keep your list of traits a scammer might exploit in mind as you talk to your online friend. If you notice them repeatedly touching on one or more of these areas, chances are they have learned this information about you through your online chats or social pages and are using it as part of a scam.

Anyone who sees the red flags of a romance scam, has an offline friend who expresses alarm about their online relationship, or feels that someone they talk to online is gathering and exploiting aspects of their personality is encouraged to join us in our Yahoo group and/or chat room.

A Big Anniversary Celebration Is In The Works

The month of August 2012 is a big month for us at Scams of the Heart.  Our main website including the chat room officially opened on August 7, 2011 which means we will be having our first year anniversary.  And for our group, that means a party!  Not just any party, either.  We continue to have our holiday parties and member birthday parties, and sometimes parties for no particular occasion, but this anniversary party is going to be the King of Parties!  Beginning Friday, August 3rd and ending Sunday, August 12th, this party will be more than a week long celebration of memories from the past year and even before that to our goals and plans for the future of the group.  We hope all our members and friends, old and new, will join us in the fun.  We have a lot to be thankful for!

To join the fun, or to come and get help if you are involved in a possible romance scam, just click HERE.

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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

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

We Are Still Growing...

Scams of the Heart is still growing!  If you are on Twitter, now you can find us there!  Come Tweet us
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What The Heck Is Squidoo???

Our Squidoo page is up and running.  Please take some time to check it out, vote on the polls, post your comments.  It is still in the process of design and growth but keep your eyes on it as it may end up being as much fun as it is informational.  If you have suggestions on topics you want more information about, let us know and we will do our best to post whatever we can for you.  So, okay, take the plunge and find out what Squidoo is.  Check us out at Scams Of The Heart on Squidoo! 
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