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Beware of Scammers

#1
Zinjanthropos Online
What a crazy afternoon it’s been. My neighbour walked over about 3 hours ago, crying and sobbing away. Turns out she was upset that her sister had just been bilked out of $65k by some con she contacted at Christianmingle.com . There’s many warnings on Google about this site populated with not so nice folks. From what I understand you get to converse on the website only twice with a person and after that it’s private email.

Apparently from what she tells me, her sister went to website because she was lonely and wanted to meet a nice Catholic man for dating. Her sister who is 58 sent this guy the money because he said he was from her city but currently doing contract work in Syria. He needed the money to cover payroll because his bank couldn’t send it for whatever reason. I know this woman is as religious as they get but when confronted by her sister as to whether she sent the guy money, she lied at first. Well, she’s now broke. Good Catholic girl conned and turned liar, probably going to cost her a few ‘Hail Mary’s” as well.

This guy was good. Set the hook by sending her a floral arrangement after she had some eye surgery done. Came with a love letter. She’s never met this apparent 65yr old who, after you look at it, must have sent her a photo of himself taken 40 yrs ago. Christ Almighty, how did she not see this as a con? One part of me feels sorry but the other side says she deserves it just for being stupid.
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#2
Syne Offline
First, it's not just Christianmingle, this sort of con is prevalent on all dating sites and many social media platforms, nor are the religious any more susceptible than anyone else. Lonely and desperate people do not tend to have the best judgement. Dating sites especially tend to promote a very unhealthy mixture of high expectations (due to the number of potential matches) and desperation (of people who cannot get a date IRL). Add to that someone old enough to be less familiar with the typical goings on of the internet, and you have the perfect mark.

Overall, it does come down to gullibility though. Before the internet, older, lonely women were preyed upon by similar cons.
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#4
C C Offline
(Sep 21, 2021 11:00 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: What a crazy afternoon it’s been. My neighbour walked over about 3 hours ago, crying and sobbing away. Turns out she was upset that her sister had just been bilked out of $65k by some con she contacted at Christianmingle.com . There’s many warnings on Google about this site populated with not so nice folks. From what I understand you get to converse on the website only twice with a person and after that it’s private email. [...]


Preying among the praying.
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#5
Leigha Offline
That’s so sad. Unfortunately, for many people in her situation, there’s no legal path to getting the money back because the guy probably wasn’t even who he said he was. In essence, she was “catfished.”
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#6
stryder Offline
(Sep 22, 2021 02:30 AM)Leigha Wrote: That’s so sad. Unfortunately, for many people in her situation, there’s no legal path to getting the money back because the guy probably wasn’t even who he said he was. In essence, she was “catfished.”

The main problem is cross-borders policing. Each country potentially has different laws in regards to how data is handled. If someone wanted to get all information on their activities for instance, they've got their own countries laws, the country who houses the server where the interactions took place and then eventually the country in which the perpetrator resides. That's potentially three different legal teams that would need to coordinate which obviously would be costly.

It's one of the main reasons why such scammers continue to use such methods, because they know it's hard to catch up with them considering the evidence trail is likely to be awkward to collect information on.

That's why if people want them caught they'll likely have to hire a private detective firm to hunt them down. (Just make sure you do due diligence on the firm, don't allow someone to talk you into using a firm because they heard about the predicament etc)
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