There’s a new wave of romance scammers on Facebook, so I am reposting this from last summer. I get a lot of them because my name begins with an A. Being in the B’s, my friend Bekki Shanklin gets them as well. Last year, Facebook friend Valerie Saurer posted “Facebook just sent me a message that hot singles are waiting for me. To prove it, they showed me a picture of my married neighbor.” That made me laugh out loud. I now have 14 girlfriends/female clients (that I know of) that have all joined online dating services. I wrote about one of them at Online dating: E-Harmony vs. Match.com — Beware the Scammers. All of them have experienced the scammers but sometimes it has taken them a while to realize the guy is up to no good. I have male friends this happens to as well.
I guess I thought everyone knew to not give up personal information real quick since these sites are filled with predators and opportunists. Some just use the connections to sell their wares, and they may hint at romance as a lure into a wallet-cleaning. I hear over and over how this one promised this and said this and then suddenly disappeared and they had no real contact info for them. The times I’ve belonged to an online dating site, I just assume everyone is a scammer until we had some normal conversations that proved to me otherwise. Usually by the 4th or 5th contact, I’d be done. I would never meet these guys in person without knowing lots more about them. And the lies? Please. We’re all grown ups here. Do not buy products or services from these folks, they’ll say anything to make a sale. Some want to meet you fast to judge by your car or house or clothes or jewelry how much they can take you for. And if they can get laid in the process, all the better. They have no conscience. This is a job for them. They make a career of doing this.
A NEW TWIST
One friend, Alfred, belongs to a Big and Beautiful online dating site and he was contacted by a woman on the site who was a psychic reader. She told him that illness would play a large part of this year for him. Although he has no health problems, he automatically began wondering what it could be. He began going over in his mind every little twitch and twang and kept getting readings from her. I wrote to him: “You know as well as I do that scammers and predators haunt these sites. If they know you are overweight, they automatically assume you are prone to all kinds of health problems, which is how they make the most money, capitalizing on that feature. You’re not like that. You are doing all sorts of things RIGHT with your health and you are on the upswing, not the downward spiral. The only way illness would play a large part is if she planted the idea in your head and you started worrying about it. And she knows that, so when your scammer friend emails or talks to you, her seduction is a hypnotic induction that you are falling for, then she sows the seed thoughts of illness, you start worrying about it and paying attention to every little ache and pain and suddenly – voila – wow she must have been psychic!
So my hypnotic suggestion to you is that you know better than this. You so smart on other topics but your radar for women sucks. Your intuition goes out the window when the testosterone begins flowing. But you see through their scams. You know there is someone for you who is a diamond amidst these clods of dirt. You don’t let yourself get hooked into their nonsense, and you skip the serious flirting until you’ve established mutual interests. Anyone can have a good time flirting with a stranger online for a few days, but 4 or 5 serious emails or conversations in, you should know more about whether she has any real interest in the real you, not just the checkbook. Then after you know there is some substance there, flirt with her like crazy and see where it goes. But she’s gotta make it past that first hurdle.”
Being on these online dating sites is a good time to practice the law of attraction, because you will be able to tell what your point of attraction is by who shows up in your experience. If there is any little part of you that says, consciously or unconsciously “I don’t deserve a wonderful partner who adores me as I am right now,” then you will attract someone who seeks out that attribute; they seek out the insecure and vulnerable.
How to get rid of being insecure and vulnerable? Know the power of your own being and that it is only your own thoughts that are keeping you in that precarious place. Feel scammed, betrayed, abandonded? That’s just another thought. Make a list of 30 things you would like in a partner. Then 30 more. Then 30 more. Look at all the people around you and pick one good thing about each, something you would like in a partner. When you do this, you are exercising your attraction muscle.
In the meantime, check out the below sites:
Signs of an internet Online Dating Scam at http://dating.about.com/od/onlinedating/ss/datingscams.htm
Nigerian Dating Scam, aka Romance Scam at http://www.datingnmore.com/fraud/scam_database.htm
Internet dating scams to look out for at http://www.examiner.com/x-12874-Denver-Relationship-Psychology-Examiner~y2009m6d23-Starting-a-new-relationship-online–internet-dating-scams-to-look-out-for
As my friend Karen Williams says: People can seem perplexing, irascible, lazy, and clueless. They can also be thoughtful, courteous, kind-hearted, and able to display signs of brilliance. By focusing on what we appreciate, as challenging as that might be when they’re demonstrating qualities we’re not wild about, we’ll draw more of what we like from them. As we change the way we view them, they’ll change the qualities they demonstrate to us.
So, as usual, it’s not about them at all, rather about us.
Go figure.
Online dating: E-Harmony vs. Match.com
A Fly On The Wall Of A Dating Site Hook-Up
RELATED: I found my old Match.com profile!
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