A romance scam occurs when strangers pretend romantic intentions, gain the affection of victims, and then use that goodwill to gain access to their victims' money, bank accounts, e-mail accounts, and/or national identification numbers or by getting the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf.

Scammers post profiles on dating websites to fish for victims. Upon finding victims scammers lure them to more private means of communication to allow for fraud to occur.

Some scammers use religious Beliefs the victims feel complacent, believing that the scammer has high moral values

Many romance scammers avoid answering personal questions and ask their victims many questions


Common variations

Narratives used to extract money from the victims of romantic scams include the following:

1. The scammer says that his or her boss paid the scammer in postal money orders. The scammer wants the mark to cash the scammer's money orders and then wire money to the scammer. The forged money orders leave the banks to incur debts against the victims.
2. The scammer says that he or she needs the mark to send money to pay for a passport. The scammer wants the mark to cash the scammer's money orders and then wire money to the scammer. The forged money orders leave the banks to incur debts against the victims.
3. The scammer says that he or she requires money for flights to the victim's country [9] and somehow never comes, or says that he or she is being held against his or her will be immigration authorities, who demand bribes.
4. The scammer says that he or she is being held against her will for failure to pay a bill or requires money for hospital bills.
5. The scammer asks the victim to package goods sent from one address and send the goods to another address. The victim does not realize that the scammer set him or her as a part of a stolen goods distribution scheme. If police investigate the trail, the scammer's use of mules makes tracing of the scammer more difficult. In addition many businesses do not trust Nigerian addresses, so scammers use mules' United States addresses to give the businesses the impression that their transaction is domestic.
6. The scammer makes a proposal of marriage and needs the victim to send them the cash for the ticket

7.i am the only daughter of the family, my parent got married to each in the state....i am happy i have a wonderful parent like my parent but unfortunately i lost my parent 2years ago in a car wreck and it sucks.Right now i am studying(art and culture or research on raw material viz wheat,oil,iron) in west Africa (Nigeria) precisely..this is my first time to travel to Nigeria and i dont really know much about this environment but i am so adaptive so i get used to a lot of things so easily and i get to understand how things are been done in the environment too as well.

Many of these scams originate from Nigeria, Kosovo, Russia, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Ghana

So be careful buddies in finding true love..

I sure hope, nobody is actually falling for that kind of stuff

If something sounds too good to be true, you know the rest!

Unfortunatly they do, some folks have lost millions to the 419 scam;^]

Shame, you still warn people but they dont heed the warning

and what happens when someone send from ur emai account telling the other one that u need money..for mom operation wich is not ture
that happen to me...and
a) i did not send that email (wich he thinks i did)
now he thinks i am fake
b) i so freak out that someone actually did that form my personal account

Here is the thing: We know most disagreements and/or problems in relationships involve finances in some way. Why involve finances in the start up of ANY relationship... friendship or otherwise????

It negates common sense completely.

i'ts just horrible that there are people who are like that. I can't even find the right words for them. Wow, that is scary

Amen to that, Peccy

Ive had this happen to several of my friends

Ive met gals on here that wanted me to bring money and meet that at a motel

That sounds like you may have been the victim of a fishing scam. That's when someone makes a look a like site of a trusted site, then they get you to sign in and steal your password. I got caught on one when I was on AOL from a fake AOL Picture site;^]

I had a few supposed girls on other sites from Russia wanting me to pay their way to America. Skrew that, if I had money like that I'd already be in Ireland;^]

I had a gal try to get me to buy her a laptop online and have it shipped directly to her location so "we could always keep in touch".

well what should i do ...i am so sad i lost this friend that really like talking to him

I am Irish,& I love green! I think I love you, but I need 1000.00 for a plane ticket to meet you. You can trust me, I love you more than anything baby!

I have my laptop picked out, I just need your credit card number. Just post it right here, we are all friends, you don't have to worry about us taking advantage of you!

Well the only thing I can say is to take steps to keep it from happening again.

Anytime you click a link make sure the web address is the correct one.

Never use window features like auto complete & remember password.

In general, always safeguard your personal info and passwords at all costs & never, can't stress this enough, never go online without a firewall. And when shutting your computer on or off always make sure your internet is disconnected while you do it, a few seconds of an unfirewalled, online computer is all a hacker needs;^]

you will be amazed a lot of people fall for it.