you've been scammed!
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www.sabrinasabino.com
You’ve Been Scammed!
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You’ve Been Scammed!
Online Dating: Are You In Love With A Scammer?
Written by: Sabrina Sabino
Visit: www.sabrinasabino.com
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Table of Contents
The Difference between Scam and Spam ...................................................................................... 4
How Can We Educate The Masses Against Internet Scams? .......................................................... 5
Beware of Badoo Scams (and other Dating Site Scams) ................................................................. 7
Scammers Target InterPals.net ................................................................................................... 10
5 Things to Do to Prove Your Online Date Is Genuine .................................................................. 11
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The Difference between Scam and Spam
You ought to know that all scam is spam. But all spam is not necessarily
scam. Spam basically means ‘unwanted mail’. Usually, the aim of
spammers is to send out emails that just might catch your
attention. They’re usually selling a product, advertising their website, or
getting the word out there for a cause, sales, discounts, etc.
Some spam is harmless. They go directly to your junk folder anyway so
many of us don’t even see get to see the email. You need to be careful
however, because some of these emails contain malware so if you don’t
know who it’s from don’t click on the link and do not download the
attachment. Sometimes you might receive emails from your friends telling
you to click on a certain link. If it’s suspicious, call them up or contact them
through Facebook or any other means and ask them to confirm that they
were the ones who sent the email. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
Let’s move on to discuss email scams. It is spam because it is ‘unwanted
mail’. However, their senders’ aka “scammers” objective is not to promote
a product. It is to steal your private information, e.g. scanned copies of your
birth certificate, driver’s license, passport photos, etc. After they’ve
received these e-documents from you, their objective is to convince you to
send money to them.
They do not carry the burden of guilt because these scam emails are
formulated in a way that requires you to send money in order for you to
receive more in return. This way, you will only fall for it if your greed clouds
your better judgment.
Why would they want your private information though? Well, they will use
these documents for future scams and even identity theft.
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How Can We Educate The Masses Against
Internet Scams?
Recently, someone I know approached me and told me that she paid almost
USD100 for internet marketing eBooks which she never received. She told
me that her objective was to make money online so she felt that it was a
reasonable price to pay. She never received the eBooks. I visited the
website she went on, only to find out that it’s a ‘fake’ website and doesn’t
even exist on who.is (www.who.is).
In this case, she’s been scammed.
There is absolutely nothing wrong selling an eBook for a hundred
dollars. You have a product that you believe in and it’s up to someone if
they want to pay for it. If you give them a description of what the book is
about then it’s all about free market, right?
This person was scammed though because she paid for something and she
never received the product, plus there is no way to obtain a refund.
Baby Steps to Avoid Being Scammed Online
1. Malware.
When you receive an email from a friend telling you that they are
making money online, you need to be aware that there’s always a
possibility your friend’s email address was hacked into or infected by
some kind of email malware. Contact this friend of yours via
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telephone or any other means (not via email) and ask them if they can
confirm that it was indeed them who sent the email.
2. Do Not Click On The Link.
At most, copy the link (e.g. somethingkashfast.com) on the Google
search bar and analyze the results of it. Are people talking about it?
Has anyone reviewed the site online? Do search results of the site
actually exist? Etc. Remember that a search result SHOULD exist, and
there should be a good number of positive reviews if you ought to
take a risk.
3. Avoid Payment At All Cost.
You do not know what you’re getting into, so avoid paying for
it. Having said that, if you do have to pay for it, consider using
payment processors with buyer protection (e.g. PayPal). That way,
you can always initiate a dispute and get your money back easily.
4. Avoid Greed.
Do your research. Copy & paste the email content online, ask
scambaiters for help (they won’t charge for this!).
DO NOT ALLOW YOUR GREED TO CLOUD YOUR COMMON SENSE.
5. Utilize Your Resources.
Remember that there are FREE resources online. Why pay for it,
when you can get it for free? There are plenty of websites (blogs,
forums, etc.) that will help you out and answer your questions about
making money online or how to use the internet in a more effective
way. Utilize these resources. Talk to people who KNOW about the
internet.
6. Do Not Discriminate.
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REMEMBER that just because he’s a guy, doesn’t mean he was born
knowing about tech and internet stuff. He will tell you that he does
because he’s trying to impress you and you do not know the
difference so you do not know any better.
I don’t really know how to do my part in educating people online especially
the growing number of NEW internet users everyday but I really want to do
whatever I can and I will.
Beware of Badoo Scams (and other Dating
Site Scams)
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I’ve never been a member of Badoo. The first time I heard about it was
through an email invitation several years ago, and when I checked out the
site I felt it was too dating-site like so I didn’t join it. Not that I have
anything against dating sites or people who frequent them. It’s just not my
thing. Although I did co-own a dating site several years ago but decided to
take it down due to software-malfunction (Boonex Dolphin: AVOID AT ALL
COST!) and the number of LIARS that signed up.
Webmaster Experience
It is easy for webmasters to spot a liar, especially one that isn’t meticulous
with his/her work. As a webmaster, we are able to obtain IP addresses of all
registrants. So if the registrant claims to be in USA but their IP address
points to e.g. Senegal, I ban them. This was a tough time-consuming
job. Most “liars (i.e. potential scammers)” were from the West African
region, such as Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, etc.
Most of the time they will upload pictures of people who have signed up at
other dating sites or pictures obtained from the internet and pass it off as
their own. These scammers were so careful to hide it from the admin
account(s) to avoid being banned or discovered so I did the worst (and best)
thing a webmaster could have done: I tracked them down using the
database and not the crappy software.
The database allowed me to “pry” into my members’ private inbox and
helped me identify suspicious behavior. There were several scammers
sending out the same ‘copy & paste’ messages to as many male members as
possible. I even had some members replying to these scammers. It was
such a sad situation. I spent a lot of time banning people so I was more than
glad to get away from that “job”.
No matter how many times I warn people I know or people reading my blogs
about being cautious online, many don’t seem to care or believe me. Their
minds are flooded with financial greed or marital desperation to the point
where they’re looking at the situation through the eyes of desire that they
fail to recognize reality.
Badoo Case Study
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Recently, someone I know who is a member of Badoo was almost
scammed. This is a true story. The lady (English isn’t her first language) was
being chatted up by a guy who claimed to be British. Except that he was
fluent in French (which the lady is literate in). This “Briton” was apparently
a businessman; his business takes him to places in Africa and Asia. She later
told me that she did find it weird that his English didn’t seem fluent at all,
almost like he could barely speak English. He would chat with her via Badoo
messages, text and even phone calls. These phone numbers were always
different – he was a traveler after all. I can tell you that fortunately, this
particular person wasn’t scammed. She got out of it in the nick of time. But
some people aren’t as lucky.
The Scam
This is how this particular scam works: the guy tries to talk about how
beautiful and wonderful the girl is. He talks about a relationship, and gives
this girl a vision of what might be. So the girl falls in love with the idea of
dating a successful guy who gives her so much attention. He then tells her
that he will send her a gift. The gift isn’t a cheap one; according to him it
costs thousands of dollars or pounds, even tens of thousands. He claims to
have sent it through a “middle-country”. I.e. he sends it from where he is
and before it arrives to your country, it is held at the customs (or courier –
*if there is a website link and tracking ID then the whole website is either
part of the scam – check the authenticity of the existence of this courier
service or website…or the ID number/password) of a neighboring or the
stopover country. Now, because the item(s) are so expensive they require
you to send several thousands of dollars or pounds for it to be released from
customs (or courier). You believe all this because it is a lady or another
person from that country telling you that your items cannot be released
until you pay the fees.
What you do not know is that there is NO item and that this customs (or
courier) person is in on the scam. You send them the money and they will
either disappear or tell you that there are other charges/fees that you will
have to pay before they can send you the item.
But…?
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I know what you’re thinking. “But…the guy showed me his pictures!”, “but
the guy called me from England!”, “but…!” All these but questions can be
answered. For instance, Skype allows you to purchase an online
number. You can choose the country you want this number to be from, e.g.
US, UK, Hong Kong, Italy, etc. If you have this number, you can call any
phone number in the world and they will believe that you are in that
particular country because that’s what is written as your country code. You
can also text them through this number.
Pictures are easily obtainable. For example, you can type up anyone’s name
on Facebook and if their privacy settings are set to public you will be able to
browse through (and download) the person’s personal pictures. It could be
holiday pictures, images taken at work or a park, in their home, webcam
shots, etc. So the variety of pictures will show the same person, at different
locations. If a scammer shows you these pictures it is easy for people to
think that the scammer is who they say they are.
Please browse through these recommended links and read the experiences
of people who fell victim to these crimes and therefore lost a lot of money.
Scammers Target InterPals.net
Someone approached me asking for help to locate a (+44) number. I told
her that as far as I know, +44 is the country code for UK. She seemed
surprised so I asked her what that was about. Apparently she joined
Interpals.net (www.interpals.net) and someone called “Raymond Banks”
claiming to be from the US gave her his number (+44) 7024024413 and
email address: raymondbanks111@gmail.com
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I did a quick search for that number online and a person advertising a
service in Nigeria that provides matchmaking people with a “sugar daddy”
or “sugar mummy”.
If you’re someone who is using a dating site or such social networking
websites to look for dates, you need to be very careful. There seems to be a
heck of a lot of scammers there. It’s amazing that these social networking
sites don’t seem to be doing anything about it.
I don’t really know if people who are into dating sites should consider paid
ones. Perhaps they have better security there? It’s probably just a little
safer to try Facebook. Join a singles wanting to mingle group and send
people you like private messages. That way you get to add each other and
see each other’s friends. It’s not a sure-fire way to meet legit new people
online but it’s probably a little better than these dating sites.
5 Things to Do to Prove Your Online Date Is
Genuine
Many of my friends and acquaintances are on social networking sites or
dating websites to look for that special person online. There are millions of
genuine people just like them who are in search for their second half. I’ve
come up with 5 methods you can use to attempt to ensure that the person
you are chatting with truly is the person they say they are:
1 – They have a Facebook account
Most people have Facebook accounts, and let’s face it – if you’re on any
social networking or dating website looking for new friends or your other
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half then you should have nothing against being on Facebook. Facebook
connects people with family, relatives and friends. So if your online date has
a Facebook account, you should be able to see people with similar names
linking to them, their family and friends chatting with them on their walls,
etc. It also gives you an idea of how genuine the person is because if they
can talk to you privately, surely they’ll be able to talk to you in public with
everyone they know prying in their business. Do not send your private
pictures via email. If they want to see your pictures, tell them to add you on
Facebook.
Warning: If they have only a handful of friends and most of them are of the
opposite gender, and none of their friends seem to be family members (i.e.
with the same surname) then you might want to be careful.
2 – Talk to them by phone.
A phone number is not a guarantee that the person is located where they
say they are. Today, anyone can get their hands on any kind of phone
number. Skype for example, gives out phone numbers so you can pretend
to be in places such as the US, UK, Hong Kong, etc. even if you are located
somewhere else. The person receiving the call will see your overseas phone
number and you can pretend that you are actually in these other
countries. There are also many scam groups especially from Africa that are
located overseas. They do this as a full time or part time job. So their
phone number will show that they are located in these countries, and their
free email accounts; if they created it in these countries will show that they
were created in that country by default (e.g. if they are in the Philippines
and created an Yahoo email account there it might end with an
@yahoo.com.ph or if it was created in the UK, it might be @yahoo.co.uk.
So make sure you talk to them by phone. If you’re good with accents or if
you have a friend who is good at identifying accents then you might be able
to know if the person is from where they say they’re from. For example, if
the person claims to be born and raised in Manchester in the UK. A typical
person from that place may have a UK accent but there is also an accent
specific to the people in that area. So if you’re good with accents, this might
get you somewhere with this sort of thing.
Warning: If you have the slightest bit of doubt, get a second opinion. The
person doesn’t care how you sound so you can get a friend to do the talking
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or listening. If your friend thinks this might be a scam, call the whole thing
off.
3 – They have childhood photos.
Let’s face it, we all have childhood photos. Lots of innocent people have
their photos stolen by scammers. Most scammers have a group of photos
from their current or previous victims. Ask for your online date’s childhood
photos or weird photos while you are chatting with them live. This doesn’t
necessarily mean that if a person has some readily available to you that they
are genuine, but it helps.
Warning: Sometimes the person is sending you pictures that they have
obtained from someone else or that they have stolen online, on other dating
sites or social networking sites. Do a Google Image Search just in case.
4 – Video chat with their family or friends (with webcam)
If you’ve been exchanging emails or regularly chatting with that special
someone, then I’m sure they have told someone close to them about you
(well, that is if you actually mean something to them). If that’s the case,
they are at this point where they would like to get a second opinion of
you. Remember: if the person on the other side of the computer is genuine,
they are also equally curious to know whether you’re for real or not. So
they should have no problem passing the phone to their buddy so you can
talk to the other person. If you’re able to, listen in on the accent or tone. If
you can do a video chat with them and their friends/family then this is
probably as good as it gets.
Warning: Again, this will not guarantee that the person is genuine, but at
least if they’ve got a story, e.g. they live with their daughter or siblings, etc.
then this method might help prove that.
5 – Trace their email header
Many people have Gmail accounts as their primary email address. Many
scammers will not use Gmail because Gmail provides the original email
header that allows the email to be traced. Gmail also requires phone
number verification. This method is not 100% efficient in keeping scammers
out, but it helps just that much.
Warning: Some email headers are not traceable. This doesn’t mean that it’s
proof that they are not a scammer. In fact, a typical person will not even
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care about hiding their location, so if they are not traceable then perhaps
there is something to worry about.
If you know other methods please feel free to share them on the comment
box below. Let’s make the online world a better place.
Copyright & License Information
This eBook is provided to you by Sabrina Sabino of www.sabrinasabino.com where you can
download this product for FREE. You may distribute or resell this eBook. You are NOT
permitted to modify this eBook in any way.
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