Uncover fake internet profiles and online dating scammers

If you use social networking sites to meet people, get reacquainted or to date on-line, you need to watch out. The internet is great for connecting but low on trust because it is so easy to falsify personal information and pretend to be someone you are not. Sure it is easy to understand why someone would do this, but the reality is that you don’t want to establish a relationship with someone who is lying to you or embellishing their profile to appear more attractive. Worse yet, the person is hiding their identity because they are a criminal looking to rip you off or harm you and your family.

Know the truth about these fake dating profiles, false profiles and bogus social networking profiles. You need a fast, easy, confidential and inexpensive background check to know the truth.

Don’t invest tie and money into a relationship that is based on a lie! Get the truth today.

Nearly two thirds (62%) of the UK’s social-networking site users say they are worried about the safety of their personal data held on those sites - and nearly one-third (31%) of users say they have entered false information about themselves to protect their identity, according to a survey by emedia’s RapidResearch service.

Other findings from the UK survey:

Some 81% of those surveyed use networking sites.
Users of social networking sites visit these sites on a regular basis, and almost half of them (48%) admit using these websites at work.
Nearly one in four (24%) log in every day, with half of them logging in several times a day.
Up to 45% of users log in at least once a week.
The top five websites respondents have heard off are MySpace (89%), YouTube (88%), Friends Reunited (81%), Facebook (73%) and Bebo (51%).
But the most popular sites among users are Friends Reunited (47%), YouTube (42%), MySpace (39%), Facebook (26%) and LinkedIn (19%).
Respondents keep in touch with various types of contacts among their social network, including friends (46%), colleagues (24%) and clients or potential clients (8%).

Those surveyed visit social-networking sites for personal and professional reasons: 67% contact old friends and reinforce existing friendships; over one in ten (11%) use them for business purposes.
87% of respondents think social-networking sites can be used for business purposes, including networking (65%), exchanging ideas (58%), getting advice (44%), recruitment (43%), research (35%) and selling (31%).
Half of users find advertising on social-networking sites intrusive.
Some 72% of users said they have opted out of email newsletters from social-networking sites.

About the study: The “RapidResearch Social Networking Sites Survey” focused on online users’ views of social networking sites and was concluded in August 2007. Over 100 individuals replied.

How Do You Really Know that Sexy Person You Are Chatting with Online is Really Who They Say They Are?

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/592675/how_do_you_really_know_that_sexy_person.html

Online dating is not that different from regular dating; it is all a crapshoot, but you can put the odds in your favor ... read on.

One advantages of online dating is that you can take it at your own pace, which I hope is a slow or at least moderate one. When meeting others online, you can have the advantage of many conversations before you actually meet the person face to face. This should give

you the opportunity to get to know the real them, right? Wrong!

One of the disadvantages to online dating, or international online dating, is that it is easy for anyone to conceal real facets about themselves, and their lives. How do you really know that the person you are chatting with is really, who they say they are, and not a scammer or an axe murderer?

It is virtually impossible, no pun intended, to know if the person you are talking to is really being candid about himself or herself. Being duped by a potential online suitor has happened to the best of us, and in this respect, internet dating can almost be compared to blind dating. You don't know what you are really getting into until you spend reality time together. The problem is that you could be putting yourself into potentially dangerous situations.

Before you go out with anyone, you need to take the responsibility for your own well-being, and research the individual; I cannot stress this enough. If the person that you are investigating cares about you, they should not be offended that you care enough about yourself to be cautious. Instead, they should be grateful that you respect yourself, and are smart enough to have them checked out before hand.

What should you consider when you want to meet someone online for romance or friendship? What are the dangers of meeting in person? How can you know if the person chatting on the other end is really who he or she claims to be? This article is designed to help you find answers to these and other questions, so that you can be armed with enough information to make the best decision.

What Can Be Behind a Nickname?

This is a question most people don't think that much about. Most will just read the nickname and the brief description or profile of the person and exchange pictures. After all, why would the other person lie or distort who he or she is? If he or she is interested in meeting someone, the most obvious thing to do is to be honest, right? Well, there are many reasons the other person could be lying to you, and that is why you have to keep on asking questions and pay attention to the answers.

The fact that someone's nickname is "fab_blond", does not necessarily mean that he or she is blond. Maybe he or she is someone who would like to be blond, who likes blond people, who likes the music from Blondie, who smokes blond cigarettes, whose last name is Blond, and so on. The same could happen with someone whose nickname is "astro_boy." Maybe he is not even a boy, maybe he is a grown up man or a woman posing as a young person. Maybe this "astro_boy" is into astrology or into astral experiences. This is something you won't know just by reading the profile of the person—often, profiles can be very deceiving. To know the truth, you must ask a lot of questions and pay close attention to the answers.

Another important thing to consider is that people often reflect their "alter egos" in their nicknames. They use nicknames that in one way or another reflect what they would like to be, or what they think they should be. They want to project in their nickname their "best self." For example, someone by the nickname of "sexystud", might be someone who in real life does not feel comfortable with his image, so he will project his "best self" or "ideal self" in his nickname. Going back to the example of "fab_blond", maybe this person's dream or ideal is to be blond, even though in real life his/her hair color is charcoal black.

Let's not forget that we live in a society that perpetuates the false notion that image is everything. And, because of this, some people might not feel that they fit in society's image standards. So, they will go online and pretend to be something that they're not. Some people will even go to the extent of using a picture that is not theirs.

Do's and Don'ts of Online Friendship and Romance

Don't give your real name, phone, address, or exact location to anybody online. You have no guarantees that the person you're chatting with online is what he/she claims to be. Remember that there are a lot of predators online. They can be charming and friendly, but may actually be looking for a victim that would disclose personal information to them. Later they may use that information for purposes other than meeting for a coffee. If you want to give your location for chatting purposes, you can use a very general regional location. For example, instead of saying that you are in such and such neighborhood, city, or region, you might want to say, "I live in LA" or "I live north of LA."
Don't give away your phone number. If you really want to talk with the person you just chatted with try to find a way that he/she won't get a hold of your phone number. For example, activate the phone number blocking featured —if offered by your telephone company. Or, purchase a phone card to call from a pay phone. Don't call him/her collect, since your phone number will appear on their bill. Taking the step of disclosing your phone number or calling someone you met online is a serious step you really need to think about.
Your picture, another delicate issue… Well, if you're really thinking about posting your picture online you have to think first that anybody can right click on it and save it on their hard drive. And, even if the page where your pic is posted has some coding that disables this mouse function, a copy of your pic can be stored automatically in the Temporary Internet Files folder of anybody's hard drive. Unless you're absolutely sure you don't care where your picture might end up, you should not post your picture online. Not a picture of yourself, and not a picture of yourself with someone else —unless you have gotten their permission first.
Pay close attention to the veracity of the information you're getting from the person you are chatting with. If you're chatting with someone who says that he/she drives a Mercedes, lives in a loft, and goes skiing to the Swiss Alps with the family, but at the same time is chatting through a computer at a cyber café, chances are this person is not being honest and might be trying to lure you by saying things you might want to hear—things that sounds nice and inviting. Just as people like to brag in person when they're at a party, some might take advantage of the anonymity of the Internet to brag even more. After all, no one is there to see them in real life. Once again, paying close attention to the information you're getting might be useful to identify a con or an adult who's trying to pose as a young person. Young people might drive a Mercedes (their dad's), but they'd probably rather go to California with their friends than to the Swiss Alps with their parents.
Don't give too much information about yourself at first. Save your personal information for last; and if you feel that the person at the other end is either asking you for too much information or giving you too much information about him/herself it is time for you to distrust, and even to think about moving on to chat with someone else. When someone is really interested in getting to know you, the chat will flow smoothly, and you will notice that each thread of the conversation is not a forced one but a natural one. Also, if you feel you're being asked very personal information you don't feel comfortable disclosing, don't hesitate to disconnect with that chatter. Some chat services even allow you to "rate" the overall performance of that specific chatter and you can even write an E-mail to the chat service letting them know about the behavior of this person. Then, they will take measures such as banning this person from the chat room or redirecting them to the right room.
This last paragraph also applies to you. Use appropriate wording/behavior in chat rooms. If you are "naughty," you will attract "naughty" and maybe even dangerous people. You will also lower the respect others might have towards you online.

What is a Fake Dating Profile?

A fake dating profile is a profile created on a dating service that inaccurately represents the person creating the profile. It is used to mislead other members of the dating service for varying reasons. Most fake profiles (75%+) are of woman.

Why are these Fake Dating Profiles created and who creates them?

There are three main types of fake profiles:

The first one is relatively harmless but the most common. It is created by the average person quickly just to gain access to the site by using a free trial membership. They use these memberships to check out what the dating site has to offer them. The profile usually contain minimal information and one word answers. This makes them fairly easy to spot and thus can be avoided. Almost always these profiles are without photo's. Since they are easy to spot you would think that the dating sites would remove them rather quickly. This is not always the case, since they can use these profiles to inflate their numbers of how many members they have.
The second fake profile type is probably the hardest to spot. It again contains bogus information about the member, but the information used is usually what is most commonly searched for in the dating world. As an example a male or female under thirty who is trim and good looking. The picture used is usually of some good looking person probably taken from another dating sites member profile. This type of fake profile is created to create more responses from other members. The person wishes to lead other members on just for the fun of it (don't ask me why?} or to actually try and get a date hoping that when the person actually see's them and gets to know them, all lies will be forgiven!
The last fake profile type is created to indirectly make money for the profile owner. Half the time, these fake profiles contain actual photo's of the person along with an exaggerated profile. These profiles are usually created by escorts or people from porn sites. They do this, with the idea that you will like this persons photo and profile so much, that you would willing to pay to see more of them. These type of profiles are mainly geared towards men and/or people with certain fetishes. Dating Services don't like these profiles since they degrade their site and can take potential money from them. Not always easily to spot at first (some can be blatantly obvious though), these profile are usually removed when enough members complain about them.

To wrap up...

In the end all dating sites contain the above fake profile types to varying degrees. It's hard for the dating services to keep up with them since so many are created (there are automated programs that can actually create them). With good software filters and manual checking of profiles they can be for the most part easily flagged as fake and then removed in time.

Fake Profiles are the scourge of the online dating world. These are the “filler” people that dating sites often include on their site to skew the membership numbers and attract more people. If you’ve ever seen a dating site launch that somehow has thousands of members, you begin to understand where the problem begins. Some may consider this to be a harmless practice—one of the necessary requirements to building an online dating community. Yet it becomes very easy to see how companies could turn a benign act of membership padding into an aggressive and mischievous money grab from would-be members.

You need not look far for evidence that fake profiles exist. You can run Google searches for companies selling dating software and you'll see that some come complete with members already installed. Employees of certain dating sites admitted to me that they had thousands of fake profiles when they started. Once you get your head around how the game is played, you can be a smarter, savvier dating consumer.

There are all kinds of reasons that a real person may not answer your messages and many of them have nothing to do with you personally. Maybe they got really busy, left town on vacation, or decided that online dating is just not their thing. The important thing here is not to get discouraged. There are lots more fish in the sea…

You might also get a wink from a girl who’s not actually a paying member of that site. If you join to message her she may not be able to respond unless she pays… and she may not be willing to do that. If she’s not willing to pay to talk to you, then she’s not worth your time anyway. Move on to the next cute girl on your list.

You may think that it is "love at first type" and that you have found your soul mate. Internet dating in today's day and age is fairly common. The majority of people know of at least one couple who have met either on an Internet dating site or on the Internet one way or another. One of the most alarming aspects with regard to Internet dating is that people can literally use fake dating profiles. The problem is that these fake profiles look exactly the same as a genuine profile and you will not be able to tell the difference. It is extremely easy over the Internet to pretend to be someone else.

One of the most frightening aspects with regard to these fake online dating profiles is that sometimes you will not be able to tell the difference. No matter how good looking a person is, it is important to realize that it could be a fake photograph. Of course nobody is going to be able to enjoy online dating if they are constantly paranoid, so it is vital to balance it out. It may be a good idea to keep in mind that there are fake profiles out there but at the same time to still give people a chance.

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