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As with anything Internet related, you must always be weary and use common sense when dealing with people for the first time, this includes those beautiful loving women that inexplicably contact you out of the blue wishing to strike up some sort relationship with you.

The following is a list of warning signs to look for in order to detect a scammer just out to swipe a few bucks from your wallet.

Encountering one or more of these Warning Signs in your own relations should make you pause but remember there is no reason for paranoia! If many of these are present, step back and simply use common sense!

• You found her at a free-to-post-personals website.

  Now right off the bat you should know that at any of these "free-to-post-personals" websites you are going to find a mixture of sincere and "scammer" persons. Of course, other than in person or by reference or in some random way, there are only two general ways you are going to "meet" these girls: at such a free-to-post-personals website or via an "Agency". So if Agencies have to be approached with caution and these free-to-post-personals also have a lot of scammers what is a guy to do?

  The best thing to do is to keep on a lookout for the other Warning Signs listed here. Additionally, here are some things to watch out for:

  1) Does she have more than one profile posted? It has been my experience that real persons post only one time but that scammers or Agencies (whether scammers or just parasites) post multiple times. Scroll through the profiles or search the same parameters and see if you find any others.

  2) Similarly, do you find more than one profile with different information such as name, ages, locations, etc. Naturally why would these be different if the person was real?

  3) Did her profile disappear? Shortly after you begin to write regularly to each other go back and check to see if her original profile is still where you found it. Do this once a week. A real person is going to leave her profile there until she gets committed or finds her true love. But if the profile is gone then it could have been removed by the host because of received complaints; or the photos, identity and location of that profile may have become known to the anti-scammer forces and the scammers may have removed it because of this; or the scammer has adopted a pattern of placing a profile, luring a few correspondents in and then removing it so as to avoid detection.

  Note: If the profile is there you may wish to try the tactic of writing again using a different "identity". Receiving the same "introductory response". What you should be looking for as you carry on this second correspondence is whether the "emotional connection" is the same, i.e. is she also telling you as this second identity that she "loves you", "wants to be with you", etc. If so, you know she is not sincere.

  4) Are you going to be dealing with an agency? The chances are more likely that you will be dealing with an Agency if the photos have a studio or blank background or are otherwise professional in nature. Also, if this is the case then it is most likely that the girl herself did not post her profile but that the Agency did it for her. Keep this in mind in your early correspondence and also don't be shocked to suddenly find yourself facing a middleman (or middlewoman). This is only my preference, but it seems more advisable to deal with a real woman that has natural photos then even a real woman who is using a legitimate agency for several reasons. If you are dealing with an Agency then it can be legitimate or it may be a scam and you will have to take into consideration all of the other factors involved here. It isn't always possible to have a situation without an Agency as some persons with limited Net-access or limited english skills may have to rely on these services.

  So while dealing with an Agency (that otherwise doesn't possess any of the other Warning Signs) can be OK, if your "relationship" or communications seems to be or becomes more about keeping the Agency as a middleman instead of helping you two to get acquainted, then you have to ask yourself the bottom line question.

  The bottom line: Did you want to meet a girl or did you want to meet an Agency?

• Her Agency uses a free web-host.

  Although the use of a web-host is not by itself a sign of a scammer Agency, it is obviously easy to see just how simple it would be to set up a scam operation using such a service. Check the top level domain name for signs that it is "free"

  It seems dubious that a legitimate business would both rely upon a free web-host and be too cheap to pay for the "no banner advertisements" usually offered by such hosts, so if you do see that banners are going that is an indication that there may be something wrong and also that the web-host will have limited info on the company. It should be noted that there are many good businesses taking advantage of these free web-hosts but on balance, the ease with which an individual may establish such a cyberstorefront façade is a fact too dangerous to ignore completely.

  (TIP: In these cases, look very critically at the complexity and sophistication of the website. What are the affiliations and advertisers? Does it allow you to make orders using a well known payment method like a major credit card? Are there many levels and pages or is it very basic in nature? Although not a complete guarantee, a legitimate business is going to put together a quality presentation while the scammer website is only going to do enough to hook you with a pretty face and then conduct the rest of the scam by e-mail.)

  (TIP: Should you have problems with such an agency feel free to report it to the abuse section of the web-host. Also feel free to ask directly how the agency gets its access to the Internet. In the event you are scammed, you will want to complain to the agency's ISP and the DNS registrant. Using Network-Tools may help to obtain valuable information.)

  The bottom line: If the company is unwilling to put money into itself, why would YOU?

• Her Agency is "blacklisted."

  There are a number of notorious agencies.

  (EVIL TIP: Your best choice is to stay away from them completely. But if you want to have some fun and occupy their resources feel free to email them anything and everything. Pass along those annoying e-mails that your friends send to you. No doubt they will soon block your email or send it directly to the trash but with many individuals doing this they might find it a bit overwhelming.)

  Fortunately, scammer agencies and individuals operating through them are easier to detect than individuals operating on their own once you know what to look for.

  The bottom line: They're blacklisted dummy!

• Her Agency includes other "scammers."

  Just because you don't see your correspondent listed here at Scam Alert or elsewhere doesn't mean you aren't being scammed. Depending on the Agency's policies and operation, the presence of "known" scammers at the Agency where your woman "resides" should be a big warning sign to you. Of course, some very large websites (see note on F2P Websites) contain a mix of legitimate persons and scammers because they allow anyone to post a profile so this Warning Sign must be taken with a grain of salt. Smaller agencies that claim to regulate their clientele should have no scammers at all.

  (TIP: Browse your woman's website thoroughly and if you do encounter a known scammer, ask the manager of the Agency or the webmaster why a known scammer is a client or listed. The answer should be very enlightening.)

  The bottom line: Birds of a feather flock together.

• Her Agency doesn't update the personals.

  Hey some people are too busy scamming you to update their personals. So what if that "18 year old student" is now 25, married and living in Australia. Seriously though, keep in mind that some large agencies and especially the free listings may not update very often.

  (TIP: If you reach the point where you are concentrating on each other, ask the woman to remove her profile from the Agency's profiles while you two figure out if you are going to get serious. If the Agency says it is not possible consider that an indication that the Agency is not very good and potentially a scam. But keep in mind that this advice is for ONLY those that are near engagement. It has been reported that some women have been "stood up" at the last minute. Given the expense and hassle of making a listing, it should not be surprising that some sincere ladies would be reluctant to pull their profile before you have slipped a ring on her finger.)

  The bottom line: You should prefer to deal with agencies that provide excellent service to their clients. This includes updating their personal listings as circumstances change.

• She sends the same letters verbatim that known scammers have written.

  Read some of the letters that have been posted on the other anti-scam websites. (The Author generally does not post the actual letters or copies of emails for aesthetic and space reasons.) If you suddenly feel a bad case of Deja Vu the scam is on you!
  
  The bottom line: Familiarize yourself with the standard letters (try not to be horrified if you have received one) and more importantly, get a feel for the "tone" and "style" of these letters.

• The filenames of her photos are numbered above ten (10) (e.g. 025.jpg, 015.jpg, etc.).

  How many real people when they digitize their own pictures or have this done give them such ridiculous filenames? Some scammer Agencies attempt to somewhat personalize their large list of photos (e.g. alena12.jpg, nata25.jpg, etc.) and others just assign them a number. If the woman is using a legitimate Agency AND the Agency or she informs you that these photos (ask them) were the product of a photo shoot then this may be acceptable. Otherwise, it is unlikely that an individual or a legitimate agency would have more than a dozen photos scanned and available for you and certainly it is unlikely to have numbered them in this way.

  Real women using a legitimate Agency probably do not have a great number of photos scanned in the computer because to scan more than a few photos is an additional charge at most agencies and "Internet cafes". (Of course, if she is using a personal computer and scanning her own pictures then in this situation it is possible to have a number of photos. But even then she is more likely to name them and not assign numbers to them.)

  The bottom line: If you get photos numbered like that add a "0" to the number and consider that you are that numbered person she has sent it to this week.

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