odbs

It is incredible how men are easily deceived into -literally- buying deceptive online offers made of literally smoke and mirrors.

Oh well, say some, aren't you on the internet? Isn't my cousin online, too? Therefore dating online is more or less the same thing as dating in one's turf, but with a much greater choice...

a message from some lovesick "Lana" (maybe Svetlana) eager to meet me points to the canned profile of some "Julia".

These online love mongers must think all men are complete idiots who do not deserve any respect.

One day I was running searches (no porn, no dating or other 'particular' sites ) over the internet and all of a sudden I found this new window open. Again, I was not visiting any questionable site.

Apparently there was this cutie (blond teenager, go figure, eh? ) sending me instant messages to initiate a chat.

Of course it was just another junk 'dating' site...perhaps a front for malware of some sort, given how mysteriously the window appeared.

Now are the other 'members' of the site as 'real' as the cutie online 24/7 waiting just for me?

Some objected there is nothing wrong with websites' tech people wanting to help a new customer while he's signing in...as if the person portrayed in the pop-up was real!

How can I prove it's all the same? The same row of pretty faces ready to meet me tonight in Milan at 7h00...in Boston at 7h01 and in Calcutta at 7h03...

You may think Ham is grasping at straws, but the legal team of many dating sites using this method does not think so.

So -in the attachment here- say I want to join the site because I fell head over heels for "her"...would I, if I thought "she" was just a stolen pic from some amateur porn site?Now see how they teleport themselves instantly to various cities in order to meet me...they even make it to the uncharted city of "anonymous proxy"...boy, isn't that true love or what? Can you really believe the busty online love queen above wants to meet poor ugly me in...ISLAMABAD?! I never knew Pakistan had become so popular!

Well, die-hard optimists might say that, oh well, maybe that happens occasionally here and there...think again...

Tony...Ron...Suley...and probably dozens of other gullible, lovesick men are right now being taken advantage of; they are living a dream that has more in common with an acid trip than with reality...everything is fake and fraudulent: pictures, identities, life stories...

Remember that you have no idea whom you are (getting) in touch with. Some conpeople may use their own pictures (and these picture may be 15 years or kilograms 'younger' ); some may use a girlfriend's pics but most will use pics they have stolen somewhere online, whence all the pics of celebrities. Models seeking love are easily found online; multi-faced scammers are equally present, and prostitutes are well represented, too.

Oh well, but at least they are modest, like this one for whom a big house and a Lamborghini are enough:

Western Union and similar in many countries do not care to verify one's identity if one has a control number; maybe the identity you are wiring money to exists (but does not match the pictures), since many scam gangs 'borrow' women's identities in exchange for a fee; or it might not exist at all.

It has been proven many scammers are men using stolen pictures; in other cases men use girlfriends (= who may very well NOT be the ones in the pictures ) to cash wires against a percentage.

The validation of the above comes from many pictures of celebrities being used.
The reason why you see an epidemic of young, pretty scammers (irrespective of whose pictures you're actually seeing )and not of women in their 40-50s or single mothers with three kids, is because young pretty bachelorettes sell. An old(er) man in his 50-60s is very much likely to chase a hot bachelorette in her 20s than a 42yo single mother of three (right or wrong, wise or unwise that it be).
Agencies as well tend to "weed out" older women or single mothers, because they are much less likely to sell.
There is the urban legend single mothers make better candidates because you might be the pot of gold in their childs' lives, and no mother would jeopardize her child's chances for such a thing as her eloping with the milkman because she's 28 and you are 59.
There are cases of frivulous divorces involving single mothers, too.
The west is bulldyke and liberal and western doormats are disposable in court (against a fair share of their assets).
I corresponded over the years with a couple of single mothers.
I'm not interested in single mothers, but I shall commend those individuals for telling the absolute truth.
When I asked them to be absolutely honest and to tell me the real reason why they thought i was/was not a candidate, they innocently replied all they wanted was the best possible chances for their childs.
Within some limits, i could have been just about anybody.

Mostly everything and anything in the world of online and long-distance dating is fraudulent or at least highly questionable.

The above pictures were lifted from profiles on dating sites. The usual nonsense followed about the individual in the picture being Jane from New York, Nunzia from Palermo, Françoise from Amiens, Sanaa from Beirut ( see above how it works ) ready to meet you Barney, Leroy, Pedro or Wong tonight...as if...

If you look carefully, you'll see that the electricity plug in the first pictures is NOT in current use in the USA, Italy, UK, etc etc. Have you noticed the shop's language in the third picture? Have you noticed monuments/landmarks in the fourth picture? Have you noticed cars and so forth in the fifth picture?In all probability it is a picture of an East-European/Former Soviet Union model; in all probability again, the picture had been taken ages in the past.

Match.com, a unit of IAC/Interactive Corp. (IACI.O: Quote, Profile, Research), is accused in a federal lawsuit of goading members into renewing their subscriptions through bogus romantic e-mails sent out by company employees. In some instances, the suit contends, people on the Match payroll even went on sham dates with subscribers as a marketing ploy. -...-

In a separate suit, Yahoo Inc.'s (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) personals service is accused of posting profiles of fictitious potential dating partners on its Web site to make it look as though many more singles subscribe to the service than actually do.-...-

U.S. consumers spent $245.2 million on online personals and dating services in the first half of 2005, up 7.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Online Publishers Association. That's a slower growth rate compared with several years ago. At the same time, competition among online dating services is fierce, with some sites offering newfangled features such as extensive compatibility surveys to match up people with similar temperaments and outlooks.

If you ever "correspond" (PFFT!) with any of the above ghosts, you are wasting money on "friendly translators", whose only business is to keep you renewing your membership and/or buying "credits", or anyways paying your way through canned love letters.

Special "conversation software suites" exist, allowing one single user to carry on several "conversations" at once, feeding each penpal a pre-determined series of canned letters that are swiftly customized using <insert name/expression here> tags.

Why would anyone bother designing such complex pieces of software, if not to feed the ripe market of online dating scams?

What about life stories, then? What about all the clicheed stories of doom and gloom they tell their penpals in order to extract money?

Well, maybe Jane from New York is not Jane and she isn't from New York, either, but perhaps her predicament is true...

I have 6-years daughter, her father abandoned us and we live with my mother. Recently my mother lost job due to old age and our situation became very difficult.

Prices for gas and electricity became very high in the last months and we cannot use it to heat our home anymore.

The winter is coming and temperature is very cold here already. The radio say it will be up to minus 30 degrees in the near weeks. We do not know what to do and we very afraid.

The only way to heat our home it is to use portable wood burning stove which give heat with burning wood. We have a lot of wood in our region, therefore this way is very good for us and it will heat our home the whole winter with minimal charges.

I work in library and after my job I allowed to use computer. I finded your address in internet and may be you can help us.

We need portable wood burning stove, but we cannot buy it in our local market because my salary is very small. May be you have any used stove and you don’t use anymore, then we will be very grateful to you if you can donate its to us and organize transport of its to our address. We live in central part of Russia, about 200km from Moscow. I would like to send you picture of us, but unfortunately I don't have digital picture which can be transmited by computer.

Web-searches of buzz chunks still return today up to 72 non-duplicate hits across various search engines and related to various dating niches, gay dating included.

What is it like to meet people from these big dating sites, anyways (if you manage to, that is)?
Many years ago when the internet was still at the 56k modem stage, I joined a big, popular dating site.
This site routinely organized parties and events in major cities around the globe, and I happened to be in one.
I attended one such event mainly out of curiosity...some of the people then on my contact list claimed they'd attend...the usual peculiar and 'wonderful' people one may meet online...bisexual teenagers...self-proclaimed nymphos with twat piercing...swingers who loved to give head...of course (how could it be otherwise?! ) all young, model quality meat.

So I got to this dancing hall.
You imagine my surprise when I discovered that none, yes none, of the attendees looked younger than my parents at the time...
I am not fixated on youth and have no false expectations based on porn pictorial beauty: there are some women in their 40s who look much better than many in their 20s, but those people looked like an exhibit of botched plastic surgery attempts or -to be kind- a WWII veteran convention...

Needless to say I ran to the restroom, called a taxi and went home, thankful that all I was out was the entrance fee.
That taught me an important lesson -if need be- about comparing the internet with real life.
Maybe the 60ish lady who struggled to keep her dentures in place was the individual behind the moniker 'Muffy', 19 yo bisexual model with tongue piercing, into wine enemas, Bach flowers and threesomes...

I even compared notes in person with other men who had attended similar events and their impression was as bad as mine.
PFFT!

Honestly, last time you took a trip to the mall, did you see all those hotties and millionaires? Why not? Why didn't the majority conform to internet standards?

If you ask me, it is because at the mall you met REAL people; online you meet frauds and phonies.

When all is said and done, it all works like the fraudulent world of bogus "fast cash" opportunities promising fantasy revenues; or the world of bullshido 'experts' who for $399 ($299, 599...) will turn the wimp in whose face bullies kick sand into the superhero who's able to kick sand back in the bully's face.

Well, perhaps the lot of frauds, psychotherapy rejects, pranksters and other dysfunctional characters online who claim they are millionaires, movie stars, music industry moguls, astronauts or some other nonsense...