You might be approached by someone who claims they are terribly poor or have a very sick family member and are in the depths of despair (often these scammers claim to be from Russia or Eastern Europe). After they have sent you a few messages, and may be even a glamorous photo, you will be asked (directly or more subtly) to send them money to help their situation.

Some scammers even arrange to meet with you, in the hope that you give them presents or money, and then they disappear. In other cases, the scammer might start off by building a rapport with you, perhaps even sending you flowers or other small gifts. After building up a ‘relationship’, the scammer will tell you about a large amount of money they need to transfer out of their country, or that they want to share with you. They will then ask for your banking details or money for an administrative fee or tax that they claim needs to be paid to free up the money. This is a variation on the Nigerian 419 scam. Regardless of how you are scammed, you could end up losing a lot of money.

The scammer says that he or she needs the mark to send money to pay for a passport. The scammer wants the victim 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.

The scammer says that he or she requires money for flights to the victim's country and somehow never comes, or says that he or she is being held against his or her will by immigration authorities, who demand bribes.

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.

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.

The scammer makes a proposal of marriage and needs the victim to send them the cash for the ticket

The scammer, through an email message, claims to be a "nice girl" that is interested in conversing or pursuing a romantic relationship with the victim.

Fraudsters pose as beautiful girls and enroll themselves in various dating and social networking sites. Novice users not aware of this ploy get attracted to them by seeing some fake pictures/videos and contact them. Fraudsters then exploit them to the maximum extent like:

They typically claim to be from your local region but they are overseas, or going overseas mainly to Nigeria, sometimes the UK for business or family matters

They often mix up their phrases: “i” will like to heer from you soonest, I am kool, Do you have any man you care to meet, Do you have any man you planning to meet, Looking for someone to love and care for in life, Am cheerfull in life, I will like to meet someone that is caring and loving for real in life, “i” am too young for my age if you don’t know, Ok so how will you feel if i says i dont mind you, i will like you to be my best friend, You are so pretty for my likeness

     Their Habits

There are times they are gone from the conversation for a length of time and will sometimes come back at you with a different name, they’re usually conversing with more than one person at a time

If you ask them a question they don’t know they will usually be offline for a length of time so they can go look up the answer on the internet always claiming they had a phone call or had to go to the bathroom etc.

They like to send you poems or love letters, most of which can be traced back to lovingyou.com. Sometimes they even forget to change the name in the poem or letter to match your name

They ask for your phone number but when they call you can barely understand a word they say because of their accent and back ground noise

A majority of them claim to have lost a spouse/child/parent in a horrific traffic accident or airplane accident or any of the above are sick or in the hospital

They have no close family or friend or business associates to turn to, even the US embassy, instead they can only rely on a stranger they picked off the internet

To them love equals financial assistance…if you do not send them money or help them out with what they ask, you do not love them

Above all, if you call them a scammer they are highly offended and some will start throwing words at you in their native language

     Their Inconsistencies

The details they give you on IM are often different that what was stated on their profiles, one of the more common ones they give different answers to is their birth date, height/weight, and age etc.

If you catch them on an inconsistency they will claim a friend or relative must’ve been using their id to chat with you, they will always try to come up with a cover-up and of course, you are always wrong or mistaken

They often misspell the cities/towns they claim they are from and are unfamiliar with any of the local landmarks and attractions

Users need to be careful when comes to romance scams because it is an emotional loss apart from a monetary loss. They might lose trust on the Internet and people altogether.

If you are interested in dating an online partner, you need to verify the partner carefully before you begin the relationship. If the partner is based overseas, then make sure to call them and verify the phone number and address of the place given by the partner.