Hello All,

I just wanted to jot down a quick warning you can pass on to your friends/family who are Single and perhaps are meeting people online. It concerns a growing practice victimizin online Singles seeking to meet new people and using that as a method to scam them out of thousands of dollars.

Essentially, here's how it works. The con-artist creates a fake profile on a reputable Singles site (or in person for direct contact).. using real photos of someone else taken from the net. This scammer then contacts other singles and immediately moves them over to either private IM-chat or direct e-mail contact away from the reputable site to avoid detection. These scammers are using everything from CraigsList Personals, Yahoo! Personals, Match.com and other reputable sites.

They then begin to tell the Victim that they are having feelings for them and soon falling in love without ever having met the person. They will spend several weeks, in some cases up to six months, asking for nothing as they build up trust by actually turning the tables and having the Victim go out of their way to prove that they are trustworthy. Once the trust has been built and the Victim seems infatuated at the idea of having found their 'soul-mate'.. the Con is put into play.

This is done one of several ways, but always leads to the same action. Whether due to a sob story about health issues for a parent, being stranded during a vacation or working overseas doing missionary work.. the Con artist has a check or money order that they can't cash outside the U.S. to get out of their predicament. That's when the Victim either volunteers or is asked if they will cash the check/m.o., wait for funds to be deposited.. then wire the money forward back to the Con-artist.

What is happening is that U.S. banks are required to honor funds within five business days and make funds available even if the actual funds have not been transferred from the originating bank. This means that real money is made available on a counterfiet or 'doctored' check/m.o. for the Victim to withdraw even though it hasn't been discovered as a fake yet. However, as they say.. the roosters do come home to roost eventually. Once the check/m.o. is found to be counterfeit.. it is the Victim's bank account that is debited for the amount, not the Con-artist who conveniently has disappeared from the Singles site, e-mail, etc. only to set up a fresh profile with different fotos for the next victim.

People have their heart-strings pulled and get conned for moving amounts of money up to and over $50,000 thinking they were simply helping someone who seemed so in love with them. The amount transferred becomes a personal debt to the Victim and at times leads to Federal charges for counterfeiting and bank fraud against the Victim. Victims have had to take out 2nd mortgages to pay off the debt, almost had their child custody removed and a few have even grown so despondent as to take their own life.

Following is a web-site with video interviews of victims or their remaining loved ones. It also covers variations of the exact same scam presented as a lottery winning, over-payment for items you place for sale online, apartments for rent and other variations. If you know anyone who is Single and using the net to meet people, let them know that it is a fine vehicle for meeting others.. but to be aware of this scam so they do not fall prey to it.

I personally have been approached with this scam twice in the last six weeks. I caught the first person and exposed her (if it really was a 'her') to all her other contacts and had her account shut down from MySpace.com . The men who almost fell for her scam thanked me for warning them as they too were recieving the same con at various stages with the same person. I am currently in process of exposing a second person trying this scam on me right now. They can be very convincing, very emphatic, very detail oriented.. they come prepared to give the proper weather, time zone and minute details to make their story seem plausible and real. I've so far found half a dozen lies I've caught the con-artist I'm currently dealing with in and plan to do an online video in how to flush these persons out with whether their stories are real or not.

In the meantime, here is the link to the videos from victims.. http://www.fakechecks.org/prevention-victimInterview03.html

I wish you all the best, if you wish to leave an online voice-mail at my website sharing your comments or personal story use the link below and click on the voice-mail image to record your story or comments.

Henry. http://www.myspace.com/enricosuave ©2007

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