Could you be scammed?
What kind of people are most vulnerable to Internet dating scams?
According to Alan Prince, who writes a blog on internet dating scams:
1. Elderly people and other lonely groups: Elderly women and men looking for companionship are believed to be especially vulnerable to the romance scams.They are believed to be soft at heart,and willing to part with their money in return for romantic affection and attention. Other lonely groups of people are also a prime target. Their loneliness makes them to be in need of some form of company,which may not be readily available around them in their immediate environment and which the scammers readily provide.
2.Separated women,recently divorced women and the like are easy targets of the scammers. The trauma of their divorce or separation makes them vulnerable to internet love scams. The scammers hunt on various dating sites for women like these,often sifting through thousands of profiles in the process.
3.Overweight people:these set of people are about the easiest to target and to scam,according to the scammers. It appears some overweight people need someone to admire them and to love them the way they are. And it also appears that a number of them are insecure emotionally.Maybe as a result of this, some overweight women seem to do anything to hold on to a man,even if they do not know if he is for real. It appears that it is their sense of insecurity and their need for acceptance that is often exploited to get money of them.
4.People Looking For Sex: Many adult websites are a special target of the scammers.The scammers show nude pictures of themselves and pretend to engage in sexual acts with the persons they meet on the site. Usually,the people scammed through adult sites never disclose that they were scammed or they keep their losses to themselves. All who lost money to scams through this means declined to give figures of how much they were scammed of when interviewed.
People living with AIDS, and differently-abled people are also a target of the scams.
