Need some help to identify a possible scam

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 6

Does anyone know about interdatingzone.com? I have a friend that is madly in love with someone on this site. It looks like a lot of the women on this site are real, but some look and seem like scammers. I have used a fake name and model photos to set up an account. I contacted the woman he is enamored with. She has started writing me back. I had to drop some money to pay for language translations. I have spent about $14 so far; for four rather short emails to be translated. Is this the scam getting money for translations? The only way I have found to make contact is through this website. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. This guy has already been ripped off by a South African woman and a Filipina; I hope he doesn't add Chinese to the list! I realize it will be really hard to turn this guy around (he is lonely and in love) and he is leaving for China soon.

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:57 pm

YupmHi wrote:

I have spent about $14 so far;

Either you or your friend has got something radically wrong here.
Why are either of you paying for translations?
Is it not possible to correspond with someone . . . . . anyone . . . . . who can speak and write your own language? Confused

Translation fees, as part of a scam, are a common thing.
However, if you want a bit more help in determining whether or not you are corresponding with a scammer, you'll need to post more information.
If you are emailing each other, post an email along with the full header.
Also let one of our love-scam experts have a crack at her (assuming I've picked the correct gender Smile

)

Elite Baiter Joined: 11 Jul 2007 Posts: 1979

Babelfish.com is a free translator on the net. No one needs to pay for translations, especially for a few short emails. IT IS A SCAM.

Scammers are on ALL the dating sites, even the paid ones. Visit Scamwarners.com to learn what to watch out for. Or just read around a bit here.

Sounds like your friend is looking for love in all the wrong places. Sad

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 6

Thanks Breddan Butter, I was thinking that the translation fee may be the angle. I don't have any email on her just a username, you contact her through the website. You can get a membership for $10, but it comes without any translation services. OldBaglady, I couldn't find any free services at Babelfish.com that do Chinese, but I didn't look that extensively either. The only reason I spent any money at all was for expediency, his flight leaves on Thursday. I do not understand starting a relationship with anyone who cannot speak your language. My wife and I both speak English, but you wouldn't know it some days. I may just be over protective of my friend but you think after being burned twice he would be a little more skeptical. Oh well; things I have no control over; people, places and things. Thanks again!

Master Baiter Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 214

I joined that site for free but you need to pay to see the messages.

Virtually all the "women" who contacted me were chinese although the one Russian used pics I recognised. I never pay money as I only join sites to bait but this site does some Chinese to English translations for free Wink

http://worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html

OK lets say it is not a scam, though my gut says otherwise.
What happens then??????
The real problem your friend will have though even if we agree that she is real will be communication with her. What is her spoken english like if she cant write it?

What happens when she needs a visa and cant speak the lingo - REFUSED!!
Thats what 99.9% of the time and that is after he has visited several times to convince the immigration authorities the realtionship exists in the Real World and not just on line.

What if she gets it and travels who can she talk with on arrival - cut off she will get depressed and the relationship is doomed!!

Not a good scenario either way!!

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:43 am

Also it should be said that for Chinese it is not that easy to get a Visa for the US. I don't know about visiting-visa, but a working-visa takes long and, as far as I know, is refused in about 75% of the cases.

Also I see the problem with the language, if she's not able to write in English it is not only likely that she cannot speak English.
I have a lot of stamps from the Chinese immigration in my passport and trust me, there are lots of people who don't understand a word of what I say. That may be different in those big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, but the places around South China I have been to are not very well versed with English.
Even here in Hong Kong there are lots of people who have no idea what I'm talking about when I try to explain something to them.
Just yesterday I went to several Seven Elevens in search for a cigar, I was offered everything from drinks to sim-cards, but they didn't get even a simple word like cigar.

So, let's hope that your friend can still cancel his flight without losing too much money, and book it as another bad experience (as you say he already has been through this before) on the net.
Maybe he should try looking for girls in a bar or a disco, there the chances of a scam are a lot lower. Wink

If he cannot cancel the ticket he might try to change the date and maybe the destination and enjoy the olympic games.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:31 pm

This mode is starting to pop up more frequently.

Look at who owns the dating site....where is it registered? I'm betting russia
I've seen a couple of these

Don't let him get on a plane to china

If anyone only will allow communication via a paid site its a major problem

There are also some very serious problems with real chinese girls who are using translators who function as marriage brokers

Your friend really needs to do some research before getting involved with a chinese lady online...real or scammer

I'm guessing this is just a translation fee scam

Omg root
Just exactly what type of fine cigar were you expecting to find at a 7 11 anyway....a swisher sweet...white owl?

Smile

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:14 pm

Quote:

Just exactly what type of fine cigar were you expecting to find at a 7 11 anyway....a swisher sweet...white owl?

I was thinking that as well....BUT...then I remembered reading in Cigar Aficionado years ago when I smoked the damn things that 7-11 sold a 25cent cigar in a plastic display case that was very, very well liked by the experts... Shocked

And @root...HK? I lived on McDonald Do and worked at Wai Fai Loh Do from 1992-98. Great town before the handover.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:00 pm

I used to sell fake rolexes in Tsim sha Tsui.....

(Pssst!Hey meester....)

Very Happy

I've got nothing against inexpensive cigars....I smoke some handmades from Nicaragua and Honduras with a name nobody would recognize, but I get for a little over a dollar each.

Interdatingzone looks exactly like interlingvo, a fake, fraudulent dating site.

Do this little test. Register a fake, male profile, and a separate, fake, female profile FREE profiles. (don't pay!!!)

Even though you know you can't email the other fake profile, see if you can even FIND the second fake profile.

What this site does, is only allows 'real' members, to see in house, 'fake' members. So you will always be in touch with a 'ringer'.

You'll even notice you're shuttled around several domains!

Tell your friend to keep out of this. His translation money is gone.

I worked with a victim of interlingvo around christmas. He was expecting his 'chinese' lady to arrive at the local airport christmas eve after paying thousands of dollars in fees. SHe never showed up, but mysteriously a FILIPINA started calling his home phone after xmas saying she was interested in him.

The chinese lady had a story that she had a relative in the US, and she was going to visit her also during the holidays, but would stay in the uS and marry the victim.

A couple of things. It's illegal to marry on a tourist visa. The bride will be booted eventually, or it would cost a heck of a lot in lawyer fees, and is near impossible to correct. (Yeah the story is bogus)

It is VERY difficult for Chinese to get a tourist visa to the US. Period.
(As stated)

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 6

Thanks Stepan Fetchit,
My friend has CANCELED HIS TRIP TO CHINA!! I hope you don�t mind but I copied your reply and emailed it to him. He started looking at the website and realized that there were ONLY beautiful women there and ONLY men could even sign up as members. There are probably only a couple of guys running that site and they are most likely raking in a lot of cash! In the meantime his �girlfriend� got into a terrible auto accident and is now in a comma, a real sad story. It was a good thing that her sister was able to contact him and let him know. This makes me mad enough to focus on this type of scam and see what kind of damage I can do. I might revisit that idea at a later date, one thing at a time though. I am working on a rather lucrative deal with a man named Henry who has TWO MILLION DOLLARS just waiting for me to collect! Thanks again, everyone, for the help.

Elite Baiter Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 1731

Good work with your friend and welcome to eater.

Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:33 pm

Glad you found Eater YumpHi and thats great news that you stopped your friend from getting on that plane.

Great detective work Stepan!

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 2:34 am

Yup... no problem.

How did the sister contact him? I'm guessing it was via the dating site?

If via an email, can you check the email headers?

This is a new, dangerous mode. If all the communication is 'in house', it's impossible to tell where the crooks are......

for the heck of it, did the sister want money, and sent to where?

Wink

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 6

Didn't ask how he was contacted Mr. Fetchit, he wasn't feeling very chipper so I didn't press. They never asked for money, didn't need to I suppose cause they made a whole bunch of it on "translations." My guess is just a few people could get some women's photos and set up a site like that. Me also wonders how one would shut down a site like that? Maybe one of you Grand Master Baiters would know, the site is called interdatingzone.com. Big Mahalos all around Gents and Ladies!

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 2:12 pm

These are pretty complex setups, operated from the FSU, with POSSIBLY some help in China, and/or the Phils.

They will also set up the 'girls' on free, or other paid dating sites.
When they find a potential victim, they steer him to the 'translation site'.

With one of these 'girls', the registration IP on the free site they were using to find victims to send to the translation site, was actually a chinese IP. Whether they're using a proxy, or some help in china, I'm not sure?

The best thing you can do is expose the fraudulent site with as much documentation as possible, on the internet.

It is usually also possible to find the 'girl' on other dating sites, trying to steer men to the translation scam.

Posting all this on the 'net may keep a few victims from paying up.

Since this scam doesn't have the real obvious traits of most romance scams, they're kind of hard to pinpoint...EXCEPT the connection to the fraudulent site.

Very Happy

What is interesting is it seems they were setting your friend up for a more traditional scam, and a bigger 'bite'. (accident)

In the other 'chinese' scam I helped in, like this one, the girl essentially vanished...but a mysterious filipina started emailing and calling the victim right after that.

The victim vanished on me, and may be entangled with this new iteration.

Evil or Very Mad

You can only do so much

Rolling Eyes

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:51 am

good work

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