A romance scammer: what do I do to warn others?

They don’t choose YOU. They send 100s emails and see who replies. These emails are copied and pasted. That’s why names are often wrong.

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This is what the dating site wrote to me. They also provided the ticket number for me to include in reports to law enforcement. @unaluna, yes, incorrect English and foreign accents are listed here, as is "being outside of the US". Had I read this list beforehand, I would have spotted foul play much earlier.

Regarding the profile you mentioned, we can confirm that it has been located and that all the necessary steps have been taken. Please stop all interactions with this person. Our Trust and Safety team have implemented measures to ensure a safe and secure environment for our members to meet. We nevertheless encourage all our members to report any suspicious activity and avoid communicating off-site.

Once you start communicating outside of our platform, our protective measures are limited. Another good tip is to ask lots of questions! It's harder to keep your story straight when you're making it up! Trust your instincts and don't share any personal information that could be taken advantage of.

Things to watch out for/RED FLAGS:
- Immediate request for outside communication within the first message(s), mostly via email, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, or Skype
- The member is asking you for your contact details because they are “taking their profile down.”
- Message seems to be very generic and not personalized
- Any requests for money, no matter the amount
- Any requests for Gift Cards
- Any requests to log into their bank account "for" them
- Overly loving or complimentary language, especially in the early stages of communication
- Statements that distance is not an issue
- Statements declaring that they are currently overseas
- Statements that a loved one is sick or injured and needs funds to help them
- Poor English and incorrect grammar
- Foreign accents
- Excuses as to why they cannot meet in person or facetime/skype. Skype calls “glitch”.
- Emails from members stating they are leaving the site, but their friend/colleague/family member saw your profile and they want you to contact them.

- Statements that involve any type of investments in Crypto currency: Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB etc

We will not tolerate anyone who has intentions of seeking funds from our members; doing so is a violation of our Terms and Conditions of Service agreement and is not in line with the purpose of our site. We ask that each of our members report anyone who requests money from you. Furthermore, if you believe you have been the victim of an online dating or romance scam, we strongly encourage you to report that to law enforcement. You can do so through your local police department or attorney general’s office, through the FBI (Internet Crime Complaint Center(IC3) | Home Page) and/or through the FTC (https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/). If you choose to report the situation, please feel free to share our contact information as we are more than happy to cooperate with law enforcement.

While we make every effort to protect our members, it is unfortunately impossible to eliminate everyone with false intentions in an online environment. As always, your assistance in reporting suspicious behavior is appreciated.

We thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Just to update the thread: I never found time to report him. And I figured, the likelihood of such a report (actually, reportS, to many agencies) leading to him and his organization being caught are miniscule.

I just read through this thread. As others mentioned, he didn't choose you. You just happened to respond so he kept it going as long as you responded.

If you still happen to have that check, even if it's a printed company check, it will have a bank's name on it. I will take it to that bank, tell them you believe it's part of a scam or fraud, and let them have it and deal with it.

I have that check. I need to find it (I have tidied up since spring and who knows where I put it, but I remember that I did not discard it) and see which bank's name is on it. It did not occur to me. An excellent idea! I will report back to the thread. Thanks for reading1

I didn’t read the whole post but any mention of “Cape Town” or Africa is a scam!
It could have even been a woman. You can also get throw away phone numbers online and call people from your computer.
Give authorities what info you have but they probably can’t do anything to stop this.

He/she/they, whoever it is, is back.

Yesterday, an email came.

"Hello Dear, Compliments of the season and I hope you are doing well? I think about you so much... I understand you are busy and you do not have much time to write me an email or have you lost interest in me. I hope to hear from you soon..."

So today, I made sure that my email goes out without my last name showing, and wrote back: "Happy New Year! Fill me in!" I was curious what would ensue, for fun, and I finally made an effort to find the check. I found it. On the check is American River Bank, Roseville, CA. Google and Yelp show that the bank has been closed. Google shows the following result from Wikipedia:

"Who bought American River Bank?
Bank of Marin
The company was acquired by Nasdaq-listed Bank of Marin on August 6, 2021, in an all stock deal with American River being delisted from the Nasdaq."

So this check was sent to me in April 2023, when the bank no longer existed. I wonder, @seesaw, would it make sense to notify Bank of Marin, the successor, that scam dealings occur under the name of the entity which Bank of Marin bought in 2021?

I mean, only if you're bored. Sometimes it's fun to screw with scammers. Otherwise, just let it go. Block them.

This is unusual. They aren’t typically coming back. It’s too dangerous for them. I’d probably notify the bank just in case. They won’t catch the person but they’d be aware. You could notify police too. Is this person/people are using the same email address as before?

Yes, the same. Clearly they are dealing with too many cases and do not keep good records, otherwise they'd remember that I know they are scammers. Back in the spring, I asked them why their business website had just been built and their LinkedIn profile had literally no connections, all glaring red flags. Back then they were appalled that I asked these questions. And now they are back as if nothing had happened.

Yes, I responded because I intend to notify the police and wanted some fresh content for the police.

I will see if I can get hold of the Marin Bank's legal department and notify them.

It's in the language too. "Hello dear" isn't because it's a term of endearment. It's a calling card of a non English speaking scammer. I use different online platforms for client acquisition, and these are some of the trademarks of a scammer. Someone once explained to me it's because translating the opening of a traditional letter "Dear soandso" doesn't translate properly in other languages- not the words but the convention. So rather than say "Hi soandso" they say "hello dear". Also thinks "hello dear soandso".

Please don't mistake this in anyway as criticizing those learning English or for whom English isn't the first language. I'm just speaking to signs of the scammer.

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If we speak of the language use, isn't "compliments of the season' too formal, a wrong language register for this sort of casual exchange?
And also, this last missive they sent has grammatical errors. ' I understand you are busy and you do not have much time to write me an email or have you lost interest in me.' e.g.

I don’t know anyone who says “compliments of the season”, not native speakers, not English learners. And I know a lot of people.

Most of the time these scammers do admit not being native speakers, but they often lie about their native language to make it sound it more appealing. I forgot if these people told you they are foreign born.

Regardless of their language use, it’s established that these are scammers. I found more surprising that they came back but you are likely right that they forgot. They have so many people they prey upon. Or maybe because they didn’t get anything from you, they wanted to try again.

Despicable human beings

Thats interesting! Not something that would have occurred to me. Truly lost in translation! And here we think it appears suave and debonair and romantic, whereas if one were to hear it in person, the false tone might be more apparent.

Yes, this so called guy told me from the beginning that "he' was from Switzerland and that 'his' native language was Romansh. I had to look up this language.

I didn't even know the expression. "Compliments of the season". Never encountered it, either. Looked it up on Google and Quora and it is apparently formal, very polite.

If he was really from there, he’d speak at least one (likely two) other languages spoken in Switzerland. He thinks people are stupid

Yes, he could even speak all three languages.

Bit what surprises me about this really poor English is that the quality of modern machine translation is pretty good. It would seem that these scammers could avoid such give-aways.

Yes, he could even speak all three languages.

Bit what surprises me about this really poor English is that the quality of modern machine translation is pretty good. It would seem that these scammers could avoid such give-aways.

It's more pronounced in other scams and also just for clarity, you can yet scammed by someone with perfect English too, just make sure to add up red flags, you know?

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