I think a scammer uses many techniques to watch for and here is a list of what i found to be helpful in recognizing them;

1. they are in a big hurry to get your email addy

2. they claim they have a relative that is very sick

3. they fall in love with you overnight and claim you are the only one

4. they want to get you on IM on yahoo, aim, messenger or skype right away without knowing you

5. they want you to send them money or a plane ticket so you can meet them

6. they send you tons of great looking pictures that were done professionally

7. they send you tons of emails trying to gain your confidence

8. they are usually very attractive and very desperate

9. they want to know all about you but its really a front to pretend that they care when they really don't

10. they are interested in getting a fiance visa right away and want to meet you (This is so they can get their citizenship, and dump you later after they marry you and get a divorce)

11. they will ask to send you money which may be a front for a drug laundering drug cartel

12. they ask for all kinds of personal info from you

13. when you ask them for personal info they seldom supply it

14. they never had a PC that works right

15. they always cry the blues about finances

16. they like to tell you how attractive you are and that they really love you

17. they never give their snail mail address so you can write them

18. they always want money to have an interpreter service read your emails and claim they cannot afford this service without your help

19. they want to deposit money in your acct thats usually in the millions of dollars (Mostly from africa)

20. their accts have little info about them on it

THere you have it!

I've have gotten rid of quite a few scammers on this site KEEP REPORTING THEM people and you'll make the site better for everyone!

Happy New Year!

Mattmin

I had one awhile back , she was from russia and of course she said she was from this country ,  any how she immediatly ask for my e add . we went from there .  She sent me some very nice love letters and some very nice pic's nothing revealing but very intentionaly sexy.
Well we talked for about 30 days every day , how she loved me , how her mum wanted her to marry me blah  blah , blah and how her old boy friend did her so wrong , you know the Boo Hoo stuff.

Well she finaly got around to  wanting to come to america so we could get married but  she needed money for the pass port , etc, etc.

I didn't respond to her request for about 4 emails later , then she says well if I realy loved her I would send the money immediatly , I didn't reply at all and after that never heard from her again.

I wonder how many other men she was trying to string along , worse yet how many feel for her story .

I'm really new to on-line dating, I have been looking at different sites and joined this one a couple of days ago, anyway I have already been approach for my personal addy, so glad I read this...
I can't say Thank you enough for all your advice...

I hope to meet that special someone that the Lord has chosen for me, just need to be patient and cautious.

helllo everyone, i'm new to the site and it looks like i've already found a broken-english beauty with less than good intentions. she gave me her email address and i just made a new gmail account and asked some questions about the area in which she claims to live.... which i am somewhat familiar with 

we'll see how it goes, but chances are i'll be adding a new name to the list. lol

oh and other than that, this site seems great. we got some genuine good ppl on here i think.

Joan. All we can do is love them and pray for them; and stand up for ourselves.  Maybe someday they will meet a Christian that will be a witness to them, and they will come to know Jesus.
But definitely don't date them. LOL or get close to them. God will use the right person at the time that is called to be their friend for that reason (hopefully a friend of the same sex). 

Same goes for non-Christians of the opposite sex..I've learned that lesson. lol

guys thanks for all the info. i read all your forums and i believe that it is veryimportant to take care and read details to avoid scammers. Big cheese thanks for your concern to all.  God Bless you all.

I will add to the list previously given by my own experience with two men on another site. The first started about 6 or so months ago, had a pretty good profile and wrote pretty well. He said I was the "love of his life," that he was a doctor, that he was a Christian. Then he said, "I'm going to Ghana to work at an orphanage for about 6 months." I asked about his employer, and he actually had a URL for a legitimate mission in Ghana.

First came, "Can you send me clothes for the orphanage I'm working at?" I balked, saying I didn't have any in the sizes he wanted. Then he asked me to pay his internet bill, which was going to get cut off at the end of the month and he was waiting for his paycheck. Then he asked me to buy cell phones, have them shipped to my house (and he was DEMANDING my house address), then I would ship them to him and he would sell them for the money. I balked at that, since truthfully I don't even get my bills at my house address, so why would I give my house address to someone I have never met?

The last straw came when he contacted me about a month or two ago and said he was on his way home and would I look for a place for him that was close to me. I asked what price range he was looking for and he seemed baffled by the question. I said, "Well, you're a doctor, you can probably afford something about $1000/month plus the security deposit and stuff."

His answer, "I am a contractor, have always been a contractor."

The prompted the question, "Okay, so were you lying then when you said you were a doctor or are you lying now?" I never got an answer to that, and I blocked him but kept the instant messages so I could send them to Yahoo if they asked when I reported him.

The second didn't even get that far. As soon as he said, "I got a job offer to go to Ghana for a short contract." I blocked him and reported him.

But both of these guys wrote pretty well and were very smooth. It took a friend of mine, one I've seen a photo of and know his job, to tell me they were both scammers. It's pretty sad there are people out there scamming people just looking for someone to talk to or a soul mate, etc. Here is a warning from another site I'm on,

"DO NOT SEND MONEY to people you meet on ------. There are many scams coming from Nigeria, Ghana, the UK and other foreign countries. With a U.S. based account, these con artists will pretend to be working or living in a foreign country. They will typically communicate with you by gaining your trust over a period of time through e-mail or instant messenger, then request that you wire them money so they may deal with some unexpected difficulty. Although there are many variations of this scam, you need remember only one rule: DO NOT SEND MONEY TO PEOPLE YOU HAVE NEVER MET BEFORE no matter how convincing it sounds. If you suspect that one of our members is really a con artist, please report this member by selecting the Report/Block member tab under the list of Actions located on the right side of that member's profile page then check the Spam/Solicitation box and then click next. Our ------ staff will quickly delete the account and block it from our system."

Point of interest--I never gave these guys a cent. The first one I never really trusted since he would never give real info about himself or it kept changing. After that the second one I REALLY didn't trust from the beginning.

Sorry for the length of this, but I wanted to let others know my experience might have been different from theirs.