Wow. I feel so sheltered. I've met a few people from online and they have all turned out fairly.
One lady did just stop talking to me, but that's not so out of the ordinary. No harm done. One had the cajones to tell me "I dont think we need to see eachother again, but I'd like to finish up tonight," rather than just bailing out.
Most of the weirdos have come from when I've given things away and advertised it online.
geesh. How do some of these people function in real life?
I posted something like this and got no end of flames telling me how wrong I was.
Broken English and all.
Go figure.
The scammers have been hitting a friend of mine pretty hard. He's about the most gullible guy I've known and wont take good advice. He spent over 220 on a "translation service," so he could talk with a "woman," in Russia.
Since then, he's just been communicating back and forth with people from Africa, middle east and former Soviet Bloc countries. 100% of them have gone about 4 or 5 Emails before coming up with some form of sob story. Either their internet is about to get shut down and he needs to pay for it so they can talk with him or their house is about to be torn down if they cant pay a tax or etc, etc, etc...
I think that a section (maybe for the 'blogs', it could be something attached to the profile via a link) for these two topics would be pretty popular as well as not allow for sharing of ideas but the general getting to know someone better.
I know that I'd have a better idea of who someone is if I could check out day to day activities without them tailoring what they type to fit what they think I want to hear.
Also, perhaps a link on the profile that keeps track of ALL posts to these boards rather than just the last few. I really enjoy seeing what other's have put in the forums and think that it would be helpful to be able to look back over an entire history.
I dont suppose you'd mind giving more info on what they had tried to tell you about themselves, would you? It may be interesting/helpful to others. Glad you caught it in the act. I've only been here...well, not too long and already gotten some messages from the admins stating that all messages from these particular people need to be ignored and they've been banned, etc, etc. Did they ever wind up asking for money? I'm guessing that's really the only reason to scam, eh?
Way to go there!
Goldenstarfish, Good ideas there to do a Google search. (Translation: I wasnt smart enough to think of that.)
KingDavidsHarp:
How's that extra E-mail working out? Seems like it may scare people away or something. I as long as it keeps the fake profiles at bay, it's probably worth it, though.
Just by clicking the random profiles (I only see women..maybe the men are different..) it would seem that this site has a majority of younger people and maybe that is the difference here?
It's really the only thing I can think of.
And..get more pics.
:)
Maybe there should be a "Profile review," section..
I guess I'm the loner out here, but I've never taken it much into consideration.
I am working on my MBA. Online, of course. They dont have too many class rooms where I am.
But I've dated people with more smarts and more education than I have. And I've dated people with less. I've never really though "She's WAY too dumb for me," or "Man..if I only had another degree, I'd go talk to her..."
Although..there IS something kind of interesting in the thought of dating someone with a PHD.
