I'm ripe for a sting...

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 02 Dec 2012 Posts: 3

Hi...

I'm new to this forum but i hope I'm in the right place.

I have a short tale to tell about a possible dating site scam which also involves the entire dating-site itself... I'm the victim/mark ( in the early stages but no impropriety as yet towards me ) but if i may explain my story so you can get the full picture then i hope you could all advise me, so far I've hedged my bets so to speak and i haven't given too much away to these scammers as my suspicions were roused very early on.

I'm a male, single living in the UK, i have a predilection (horrible word) for black females so i joined a dating site which seemed to suit me called 'afroromance(dot)com' - I joined this site about 2 years ago and i dutifully filled in my profile as any normal person would, couple of nice pictures, some information about me and what I'm looking for and basically i was honest, like an open book...

So within a few days/weeks i got some interest in the form of 'flirts' (simple instant-message with an icon saying woman is interested) but you would have to pay to actually message them... typical dating site then, but if a woman would message you then you could reply back without paying... which is what happened to me, my first contact was a black female apparently living in the UK, she contacted me via a 'flirt' first then she messaged me... after a couple of messages she gave me her email address ([email protected]) I've removed the real name but i can supply.. (remember 'sky(dot)com' is a UK company but anyone from any part of the world can register with them) - so she sent me a message via email which also included high-resolution images of her profile pictures from the dating site.. the name of the images were also suspect showing her full name with a number sequence i.e : JaneDoe0027.jpg etc etc...

Anyway i didn't send anything back but upon my return to the dating-site i noticed her account had been closed... hmmm i thought, so i continued to surf the site (as an un-paid member) and waited for girls to contact me, basically i wasn't too keen after that and i felt the entire experience wasn't exactly 'real' if you know what i mean and that first contact put my guard up... plus i saw a documentary on dating-scams and so i became quite self-aware about how i was acting and how people or contacts were acting towards me... in the end i closed my account with the dating site and did not return for a year & a half... this is were the story gets interesting.

After about a year & a half i remembered the dating site and returned to find i could open my account again which i did... this time fore-armed with knowledge and with a little hope i could actually find a real life nice female to share some life with... sadly that wasn't to be the case and within a few days of my profile being up there i was contacted by an overly keen woman again from the UK (apparently) who was very interested in me, seeing as she had some profile pictures up (I've since deleted them sorry) she lived in the UK and was keen i thought ok lets see how far i can take this without arousing suspicion and just to test the water so to speak.

So this woman messaged me on the site and i was then allowed to reply, it was the usual simple messages at first, then she asked me if i IM (instant message) i said i did not... then she sent me another message asking if i had a mobile number and then a SKYPE address which i did not... ( I wouldn't offer out my mobile number, a single 'working' UK mobile phone number is worth £5 to sell to scammers and spammers) so the next message from me was rather stupid (but in retrospect exposed the entire scam from top-to-bottom) i offered her my home number... yes i was brave and a bit silly but i kind of hoped she was real but at the same time i was prepared to change my home number if it got too much, so i sacrificed common sense a little so i could see how far the rabbit-hole go's...

I waited and waited... but no call, nothing, i messaged her on the website and she was just asking for my mobile number saying she was 'shy' and that it would be easier for her to use a mobile... so basically that's the moment i realized this wasn't right and i replied to her that my spider-senses were tingling and that she should forget about asking me for any details... two days later her account was closed.

So i realized with my limited experience i was quite sure this was the start of something and that woman (and the woman i contacted before some 16 months previously) was most likely a scam merchant.

So i emailed the website and told them the name of the account she used and i asked them to check her financial details also seeing as they contacted me first they must of paid for a dating-subscription so they could have multiple accounts and are contacting other potential marks/males, the dating-site replied and said they'll look into it but also said the account in question had been closed and that was that... hmmm

I stayed on that site for en extra two months... still no calls from that woman i gave my number to and eventually i closed my account for a second time intending never to return.

This is where it gets really interesting...

Low & behold... not one day after closing my account i get an anonymous phone call (no return number) from an African sounding woman asked for my name and then entered into a diatribe of what i can only describe as weird... i didn't speak and she went on & on... saying things like... 'what have you done, your going to be lonely for ever' & 'you hair will grow so long it will hit the ground and everyone will think your weird' ... hardly a great insult but either way i didn't have a clue who it was... then i twigged because she said my first name and that i had an interest in computers which was the information i imparted on this afroromance dating site... so i was thinking why on earth this this woman i gave my number to two months previously not contact me until today... anyway after her diatribe she hung up, or the phone cut out... i didn't get much of a chance to speak and i was just listening to see if i could determine what the hell was going on, but she did issue me with a death threat which then set my alarm bells ringing and seeing as i recorded the phone conversation i thought this could be a matter for the UK police...

So again i emailed afroromance informing them of this new event pointing it to the previous email I'd sent them on that suspect member profile and that i may be contacting the UK police and hoped they would be helpful in this matter, to which they replied they would and that again the member in question has closed their profile...

Incidentally the very first woman who contacted me on that site and had sent me some pictures via email and then closed her account... well when i was on the site again 16 months later i noticed she was active again on the site... but within a day of me looking her her profile her account was closed... very suspicious.

Anyway the next day after I'd email afroromance about this possible death-threat i get another call from this woman... ever so apologetic... sorry, she went on saying she shouldn't of done what she did.. saying she was sick and this that the other... by that point as you can imagine my mind was set... don't giver her any more personal information and try and get as much from her as possible... which i tried to do... anyway again all she seemed interested in was getting my mobile number...

Then quite bizarrely.. she mentioned the 'UK police' the very term i used in the email to the dating-site staff... even later on in the conversation she said the line 'you may think I'm something to do with the dating site' (reverse psychology at it's best perhaps) - I won't go into the conversation but i said very little which she could talk the hind legs off a donkey...

The conversation went from banal to bizarre... from her fained sorrow to saying she loved me and do i lover her to over & over... she kept saying "do you love me.. do you... do you love... me love do you love meeeee do you...?" over and over... she's either deranged or suspects it's gravy on the lonely-hearts self esteem meter (buttering up the mark for the long-con) which is basically what this was all about... a long-con.

I won't bore you anymore with another wall of text but in short i think I'm on the right lines in saying this is a scam or the start of one and I'm sure the entire site (afroromance(dot)com) are all in with each other... the site is a conduit or a portal suckering the lonely and with the staff making up dozens and dozens of fake profiles one for every occasion whether your from the UK or the EU or the US they will have a willing profile member in your area saying your wonderful and that i think i love you... just to extract some information leading inexorably to the long-con. - The staff of that site must monitor 'real' sign-ups and then supplant them with false hope using subversive tactics to trick the mark into thinking there's a real person interested in them... you may know the rest of the story after that...

So in short... the entire site could be suspect, like a spiders-web of subversion and deceit ensnaring the vulnerable, the bait are woman, made-up profiles, stolen images, all the staff are in on the deal.

I'm still waiting for my third call from them, but i did mention that they were calling an off-duty police officer... which said turned them on and quite quickly after that the call was terminated as usual... no goodbye, no thanks for a nice chat... just half way through a sentence.... the cut-off tone... they say they use an iphone... but why ask for skype? skype on iphone? i don't have a return number.. skype wouldn't leave one anyway... but i asked ... "the computer you surfed the dating site with, why don't you send me your profile images to my email address from it?" - the woman was very interested in why i asked about her 'computer' obviously she was lying... i gave her an email address and waited for her profile images, but nothings arrived... she would protest vehemently about why she should send those images... if she's in the UK i asked, were is her facebook page? myspace? she had nothing she told me... obviously suspect from start to finish...

.. and that's basically that, she did leave me with a mobile number to call... but i haven't yet and i won't, she even told me her 'real' name... i checked it out on google and nothing comes up, maybe one image could of been of her i found... but seeing as deleted the profile images it's hard to tell... anyway I'll have to see what i can weedle out of her... she also asked if i was 'working'... blah blah... could be normal interest, could be checking if i had money or not... either way she sounded too African to be a UK national without any facebook page or site, apparently living in the UK for 15 years she said...

I have my suspicions that the entire dating site is corrupt and has led to this situation, the woman i have been speaking with could be a staff member living in Nigeria who has taken photos of her self as 'man-bait' and then uploaded them to the site she's a party to and created a fake profile based on an imaginary professional woman (Sally) living in the UK just for the purposes of suckering real sign-ups to her site, they must have many woman on their books, mostly fakes, all working for the same cause.

avoid : afroromance(dot)com is my final thought.

That's about it, I'll report back with any news, hope this helps.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 02 Dec 2012 Posts: 3

Here's another link to a complaint about afroromance here

OK, now i think i have the deal on that site and this is roughly how it go's...

Remember all the staff who own/run that site are in on the deal, you thought it was just other miscreants joining their services to enact their evil plans? think again... (read post above) this is how I'm sure and this is how they pan out...

You join their site, fill in your details, submit some images and when your 'approved' by the sites staff/moderators your profile go's live and your set...

That's also the very moment one of the members of site-staff create a custom/made-up profile on their own system which they think would suit you down to the ground to use as 'man-bait' - if your into IT/Computers.. they will make a profile of a woman who's a little 'geeky' wears glasses and has a secret passion for computers... perhaps even i would go as far to say that some of the staff are female who are then photographed and used in the suspect profile for a small fee, perhaps all 'stolen' photographs (the usual way) but to complete the believability of the 'long-con' this may be a way of doing things....

Then the 'fake' and freshly made profile will contact you seemingly the best hit you could of possibly wished for... then the rest as they say is history... they'll butter you up, ask inevitably for an email address (or skype number) then contact you from the comfort of their secret location (most likely Nigeria or where other scams are popular) and just pretend they are from the UK while being your perfect lady... they are predisposed to thinking your going to be vulnerable or lonely and that's half the battle won for them... they will prey upon your emotions and eventually end up asking the sacred questions.... "could you send me some money because.. blah blah f*cking blah" that's all it's going to lead to...

So conspiracy or true? - I'm quite certain the site itself is like a scam-portal, the people behind the scenes you assume would take care of your profile data, your information, but in reality you could be offering them the gold key to the crapper without even knowing it... then they who control the site and the systems of profile creation then bait everyone for cash...with all the BS in-between in the end they are just leeches worthy of the utmost contempt and i hope my little investigation serves others in the hope to avoid their deceitful coercion.

I have uncovered their little scam i think, they must be desperate to, it's a sign.
Good luck.

Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 6:48 am

First of all welcome to Eater.... Laughing

Alas it is a sign of the times that on ANY dating site you are going to find Fakes, most site admins will try to weed out the fakes, but inevitably there will be some that slip through the net.

All you can really do is to be aware, and if the profile seems iffy, have no more contact.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

Quote:

they will prey upon your emotions and eventually end up asking the sacred questions.... "could you send me some money because..

That's pretty much what it usually leads to. I'm sure there are many legit dating sites, but the sheer volume of scammers infesting them make it nearly impossible for the site owners to weed out all of them. It's like trying to eliminate a cockroach infestation by stepping on them one at a time.

People need to be told to never EVER send money to someone they don't know, no matter how many protestations of love (and who falls madly in love after a few emails?) they get.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 02 Dec 2012 Posts: 3

Thanks chaps....

I have asked myself the question...

What came first...? - The dating-site or the dating-site scammer?

As i have outlined above in my humble opinion the afroromance dating site is corrupt to the core, I'm sure some honest individuals join that site looking for romance but besides that you'll be entering an arena of subversion and coercion.

Listening back to my recorded telephone conversation the 'woman' on the other end of the phone she was very keen to get any details from me which i suppose would have been used against me later on for blackmail purposes, specifically where i lived (in detail) and phone numbers (mobile & instant messaging) and if i worked - All this woman had to go on was my data which i typed into their profile system on afroromance and because i didn't pay to join (thank god, can you imagine what they would of done with your payment details?) i was able to just get away with using my first name and some personal interests of mine, because I'm from the UK and seemingly affluent i was an instant target.

I'll say this again... afroromance as a dating-website (in it's entirely) is a fraud, masquerading as a legitimate business when in reality its an on-line spiders-web waiting to catch your data and your details to use against you, it preys upon the virtuous and innocence of those genuinely looking for romance.

I say this with confidence, i have out-lined my reasons above in the previous posts and i hope it serves others as a warning to simple stay away at all costs, can you imagine all those profiles and data honest people are inputting into their systems which is then sold on or used, you enter a valid UK mobile number, thats £5 to them right there, you enter your address details, personal interests, any financial details to join the site as a paying member must also be abused i bet.

Remember the news story recently of MegaUpload? purported to be an on-line storage service offering nothing more than free space funded by advertising in which you can send larger files to your friends.... the owner was arrested on piracy charges and to this day claims he is innocent... he was a multimillionaire and had obscene extravagant spending habits, pink-Cadillacs, Mediterranean cruises on boats filled with girls ripped to the tits on drink & drugs... the usual kinda thing for a man living like theirs no tomorrow. - Well in reality he ran a worldwide 'racket' ostensibly selling everybody else's hard work (films, games, porn) via his network of 'xxx-forums' (there are many) in which he would pay file-mules to post links which would go back to his paid download services (faster speeds, files broken up in parts, pushing always for you to pay) he setup the sites, the links were all posted there leading to his download services in Hong-Kong and he kept his hands clean... they call it a racket and he knew what he was doing, he and many others are partly responsible for the death of the on-line porn-industry and many other things to... giving people the free 'bait' which always leads to his download services, from megaupload to filesonic, oron, rapidgator... they are all in with each other working for the same cause, if you think he made his millions selling a few megs of space to students wanting to share their game-files or photos...think again, corrupt as they come.. it was all a scam from start to finish and he even has the temerity to hide behind internet 'hacktivists' saying he's being victimized unfairly... even 'anonymous' were suckered into thinking he's worth protecting... they can be wrong, besides who really wears the eponymous 'anon' mask as they 'hack' away is another matter.... but it just go's to show the duplicity of what's involved to complete a scam of this nature.. he was a con-man pure and simple, these dating sites operate in the same way... they are acting like a catch-all... seemingly innocuous on the surface but scratch away and it gets dark quite quickly.

So you want to scam bait? try that site... and remember... that entire site is a yawning black hole of subversion eagerly waiting it's next victim.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

I just checked out that site, looking for men in my country. I didn't see any obvious scammer profiles - no terrible grammar, ridiculous comments or obviously stolen pictures of models.

Scammers exploit any opening and dating sites are a prime target where they can find lonely people eager to find and believe in love. But they're everywhere, even on the Yahoo event calendar and of course all job and Craigslist type sites.

Just because a site is infested with scammers doesn't mean the site itself is a scam site.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 11 Dec 2012 Posts: 4

There are uncooth people everywhere, and remember, ANYONE can start a dating site. And I am sure, out of all of the ones in existance, a few use tactics like you explained Carl.

And they don't have to be from Africa to be scammers, they could be from UK, USA, or any other western country. I truly believe what you believe, happens, Carl. In fact, I will go as far as saying, I guarantee it happens, even on so called reputable sites.