Scammers are everywhere..............Beware!

Hi Gang,

Cautionary tale for y'all. So last week a very pretty gal in her 40s popped up in my inbox and in the heart (Liked You) thing. Very pretty gal. She says she's going to have to get an ostomy soon and doesn't think she can do it without help. She's in Florida and asks me what I'm looking for............and suggested we converse off forum in an internet chat room. I told her what my expectations were regarding meeting someone on here for a relationship, but didn't see any reason to take the conversation off of here, as that's a pretty typical red flag! Lo and behold....the next day she's gone without a trace, as are all our messages.

Moral of the story is be careful. Scammers are trying to get email addresses, which they'd get if you register for a bogus chat room. They sell the addresses to advertisers. I'm guessing Admin on here figured it out and deleted everything, but had I not known about the bogus chat rooms I would have been tempted to help her. I still find it a bit hard to believe someone would come on here and try to scam folks like us.............as if we don't have enough troubles without them. But scammers know no bounds. Be careful out there and if something seems too good to be true.........or just not right in some way........you're probably being scammed.

Regards,

Bob

Thanks for the info, Bob. There was a guy who popped up in my messages a year or so ago. I don't remember his name now, but he gave me this bogus story about living in Florida but being overseas and unable to get home. He wanted money to get back, claiming he could access his own funds. Yeah, right. I have never been in another country where I did not have full access to my money. He was a smooth talker, and I am sure someone would have fallen for that story, but not this chick. The scammers are out there. It is big money! They take from the poor, struggling people, or just those with big hearts. There is always a hole in the story! Look for it!

Pup

Scammers are very common on this site. I have encountered three in the last year. So, as Bob says, beware!

Xerxes

There was  a spate of scammers on here a few years back . However, there were also some savvy ostomates who immediately warned the rest of the population as well as reporting them immediately to admin - who took their correpondence off site.

I would have been taken in by one of them, except (as Bob indicated), 'something' did not seem quite right, even though I could not quite put my finger on what it was. A day or so later another ostomate posted that they had the same correspndence and publicly called out that poster.  Now, normally, I would respond to people who seem abusive online, as I would view them as 'bullies'. However, in these cases, the harsh responses were attempts to rid the site of  'bully/scammers'  who were trying to harm people whom they obviously percieved as 'vulnerable' (Which, in certain ways we are). Fortunately, not all of us are also 'gullible', so looking out for each other (as we normally do) has its advantages!

Best wishes

Bill

Hi all its an everyday thing on my phone with the friend requests on FB, a young girl in a suggestive  pose asking to chat. 

Staying Hydrated with an Ostomy with LeeAnne Hayden | Hollister

Live & Learn! First sign on someone mentioning $$$£££, and if the pic is of a knockout woman or hunky man, chances are they're fake......no offense intended to all the beautiful ladies on site....I never trust anyone online, and luckily I'm not on the site for dating.

So scary!!! I'm new to this site, and I probably wouldn't have thought twice! Thank you so much for bringing this to light!! It's good to know we have good people who care here!

Hi Panther,

  What you say USED TO BE true.  I'm on the dating site Zoosk, and scammers are now using any pics they can find.  Ranging from "not bad looking" to "oh my".  So they no longer only use the pretty people pics.  Seems they're adapting.  Those SOBs. 

later,

bob

I had this happen to me as well. A guy who said he was in FL. We chatted on WhatsApp some, and then he asked me to send a gift card to his daughter because he was leaving the country for a job. He also said he was scheduled to get an ileostomy. I reported him to admin, and he seems to be gone. Maybe he came back as that woman! If anyone seems weird, report to admin. I won't be chatting up anyone off the site anymore, that's for sure! Thanks for posting this! I just came back to do it. It's been about 3 weeks now.

Yes, they are everywhere. I had an account on the Senior Christians website for a while. I met a really nice fella, at least I thought. We started corresponding, and he kept trying to get me into another chat room. I did my research and know that one of the first red flags is that they try to separate you into another chat room. He sent photos of himself (nice ones, not naughty) and talked about the home he had in the UK. I started to pick up on unusual English language anomalies. He would say things in the wrong order, and when most people are interested in what the other person says, he never commented much on my side of the conversation. He called one day, and the voice was definitely non-American. He said he attended a specific church in Chicago, so I researched the church and wrote to the pastor. I told him who I was and why I was contacting him. He wrote back quickly and stated he had never met this person, and no one with the name of the person was on the church directory. He said he was a small church, so he knew all of the regulars and remembered most of the visitors. I have a program that tells you if the person's photo is on other websites or dating sites as well. The pastor told me I was lucky that I found out when I did. I immediately blocked my phone number, reported him to the site manager, and pulled my profile. I also blocked him on my email and computer. It is so hard these days to really know if a person is being truthful. You have to do your research. If they try to get you off the computer and into a private room, tell you they have feelings for you shortly after you meet, promise to "someday go on a vacation" or "come for a visit" shortly after meeting, or ask for money, block them and run for the hills! I'm sorry you had to go through this, but you can use this experience to help you to be cautious next time. The one thing I notice most of all is the command of the English language. There are always small giveaways when they write or speak. It just seems to stand out. One of the things I did was to keep the conversations and read them closely for odd speech patterns. I also watched the person's story, and if it keeps changing when you ask them things in different ways, you can find out a lot about them. There are legitimate folks that use the dating sites. My father found his second wife on a dating site. You just have to have a way of checking out the person. Hope you find your special gal. Good luck now, take care. Pamela Conley

Hi all, I recently was locked out of Facebook due to hackers, and then got an email from Facebook to send a copy of my driver's license to confirm it was my FB site. Then I knew I was hacked and uninstalled FB from my phone and desktop PC.