Dating scammers know exactly how to capitalize on human weakness, where to find their “marks” and how to make your fantasies into their paydays. Here’s how

Regardless of the dating or matching website you choose, you will undoubtedly run into dating scammers. They are present even on the most legitimate websites that make every-possible effort to screen and eliminate them. Their only goal is to find new “marks”-people who are anxious to establish a relationship. Once they target you, they will be patient, careful and appear to be looking for precisely what you are. Don’t be fooled. The only thing they are seeking is your money and they have a seemingly-unending repertoire of ways to get it.

How scammers work…

Dating scammers primarily target older men between 40 and 65 years of age. Your profile on the website tells them everything they need to know to target you namely that you are anxious for a relationship, that you prefer younger women, that you are in to fantasies and that you are probably financially stable.

In a great many cases, the scammers post a profile that states that they are in the same area you are. They will also post photos of some extremely-attractive woman that isn’t them at all. However, you can’t know that, so they will use photos that appeal to men’s fantasies. More often than not, these photos are ‘plucked’ from the Internet without the owner’s knowledge. On highly-explicit websites, they are often copied from X-rated videos or promotional materials. That’s all it takes for a scammer to set the stage for the upcoming con-if you bite.

The next step in the scammer’s master plan is to get you off the dating website and onto an Instant Messenger. More often than not, they will be using a Yahoo IM so you may get talked into downloading that system. Once you’re there, it begins. Expect a continuing series of IM chats during which you will be amazed at just how much you and the scammer have in common. How does she know? Simple! The more detailed your dating website profile was, the more she knows. It doesn’t take a 180 IQ to figure out the rest.

As things progress, you will receive much evidence that suggests how much she cares for you. She will comment about how honest and open she is, extol her belief in God and being a good person, etc. She may even tell you she is in love with you and how desperately she wants to be with you.

Now for the ‘hook’….

Now that it’s clear that you’ve taken the bait, it’s time for her to set the hook. There may be a sudden medical emergency in her family or perhaps she is overdue on her Internet ISP bill and is upset because she may be unable to contact you. She knows that’s the last thing you want and that it’s likely you will offer to help. If you do, she will want the money only by a cash transfer, not a check or credit card that you can place a stop payment on. And if you send it, she will be eternally grateful. Once you’ve gone this far, you have established yourself as a patsy and are totally hooked. She has your money and you don’t really know who you are actually chatting with or what they look like.

The next step in your ongoing Internet love affair will be getting her over here to be with you. If you offer to pay her one-way air fare, she will make it quite plain that she’d prefer you to wire the cash so she can buy her own ticket. There are numerous excuses you can be given for this. The reality is that she wants to be able to have your cash, which if she is overseas, can be as much as several thousand dollars. If you are foolish enough to go for this scam, I guarantee that you will never see your money again and you will most assuredly never see her!

This may seem like a dramatic portrayal that will never happen to you. Wrong! When I began the research for this article, I set myself up purposely as a typical ‘patsy’ , invested $150 in help for her Internet bill but absolutely refused to send anything but a prepaid, non-refundable ticket for the air fare. As I anticipated, I was accused of mistrust and never heard from the lady again. No surprise there at all!

How to avoid being scammed…

The first rule you should follow if you are hell-bent on using a dating/matching website is to limit your interests to people within 50 or 60 miles of your home. In this way, if a real connection is in the offing, it will happen. Make that a MUST statement in your profile under “what you are looking for.”

Second, Never-and I mean never-get involved with someone overseas, especially in Ghana, Nigeria or anywhere in Africa. These are almost always scams, particularly if their dating website profile claimed they were close to you and in this country. This is just the first in a series of lies you will be subject to. Want proof? Merely type “dating scammers Ghana” into your browser and review the many website that list scammers and the stories from people they have scammed. That will convince anyone.

Third, while it isn’t a guarantee, you’ll be far better off if you can have a real-time webcam chat with each other. This is hard to fake. And if the person you see doesn’t look like the person’s website profile photo, run like a thief.

Fourth, never send someone money or give them your credit card info, bank account information or any other financial data. Ditto for passwords and user names.

Finally, don’t be a chump. The odds that some outrageously-beautiful young woman is going to develop a relationship interest with a man 20-40 years her senior are about equal to or greater than winning the Mega Millions Lottery. Impossible? No! Unlikely? Absolutely. The odds show that these are either scammers or hookers and you don’t need either one.

And don’t allow yourself to be ‘in love with the idea of being in love’. This requires real people who know each other and takes time to develop. Anything less is most likely just a pipe dream for a guy who wants to recapture his youth.

Barry Briskman was a copywriter and account supervisor for major advertising and PR agencies throughout his 35-year long career. In his early days, he was also a staff editor for the McGraw-Hill magazine ELECTRONICS. Mr. Briskman has a BSEE degree and an MBA in marketing and has provided advertising, PR, publicity and editorial services for some of the country’s leading Fortune 500 firms. Now retired, he resides in Long Beach, California. Visit him at his website: http://www.writerpro1.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barry_Briskman

During the season of intense campaigning for the Presidential nominations, it’s hard not to notice that ‘opponent bashing’ is the rule rather than the exception. And not a single candidate from either party has refrained from personal attacks on their rivals. Granted, some are worse than others, but many citizens have made it plain that this behavior has so disgusted them, that they have decided not to even cast a ballot.

I recently attended a group meeting of a fraternal organization here in Southern California. There were about 25 people present, most of whom were middle-class Americans. I viewed this as an opportunity to find out if the current candidate behavior, especially during political debates, disgruntled them as much as it does me. So I asked the question, “How do you feel about all the personal attacks and opponent bashing by candidates for the office of President of the United States?” The answers didn’t surprise me at all.

Almost to a man, they all said that they hated it and that it detracted from the real issues being discussed. And that it seemed ‘beneath the dignity’ of men and women competing for a nomination in the upcoming presidential election. This led me to ask still another question, “Will this affect what you do in the voting booth?” The answer to this did surprise me.

Out of the 25 people in our discussion, 18 stated that they were so fed up with it, that they decided they didn’t want to vote for anybody, party not withstanding. Of the others, 3 said Yes, but that they would probably try to ignore these comments and base their decision on answers to the issues put forth in political debates. The remaining 4 said that they had made up their minds before the debates even started and that they planned to vote for the best person (in their opinion) within their own party. I should also add that nearly everyone present said they were equally fed up with the overuse of the word ‘change.’

While this group hardly represented a statistically-viable sampling, it does point up that there are many Americans who find this opponent bashing sufficiently upsetting to not vote at all. I might add here that this 25-person group included whites, blacks and two of Asian descent and three women. Most were in the age group between 35 and 55. They were Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

Personally, I don’t believe that refusing to vote at all is the smart thing to do. After all, it is the only activity available to us to have any effect on the outcome, regardless of how small. Moreover, extending this across the total voter base in the United States certainly suggests that there may be a significant number of voters who will refuse to cast a ballot due to personal attacks and opponent bashing.

Naturally, I realize that this campaigning strategy has been around since the beginning. A check shows that there even considerable false and misleading attacks against Thomas Jefferson when he ran for President way back in 1800.

It does make me wonder, though. What would the difference be if prospective presidential nominees stuck to the issues and only responded to inaccurate characterizations without attempting personal assassinations.

Barry Briskman was a copywriter and account supervisor for major advertising and PR agencies throughout his 35-year long career. In his early days, he was also a staff editor for the McGraw-Hill magazine ELECTRONICS. Mr. Briskman has a BSEE degree and an MBA in marketing and has provided advertising, PR, publicity and editorial services for some of the country’s leading Fortune 500 firms. Now retired, he resides in Long Beach, California. Visit him at his website: http://www.writerpro1.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barry_Briskman

If New Minds Are Empty Slates, Who Will Write Upon Them?

By Barry Briskman

Writerpro1.com

It’s been said that when we’re born, our minds are an empty slate. And there’s little doubt about it. That being said, who should be doing the writing? Should it be parents and teachers, or global manufacturers?

Since the end of World War II, our American society has become increasingly materialistic. Everybody wants “things” and more and more of them. Thanks to the advent of credit cards, these things are readily available, whether we can afford them or not. In earlier days if we wanted something we didn’t have the cash to purchase outright, we merely set aside a few dollars from each paycheck until we could afford the purchase. Not any more. Today, it’s a ‘buy now and worry about paying later’ society. This begs the question, “Are we better off now than we were?”

Learning financial responsibility doesn’t usually come into play with our youngsters until they reach their early teens. Pre-teens simply go to Mom or Dad and ask for what they want. Sometimes they get it, with no questions asked. In others, it comes with a lecture about money management. In still others, it’s merely one more entry on an already well-stuffed credit card.

Commercial Interests Seem to Hold the Chalk

Think about all those new minds with empty slates. They are eager to learn—to have their slates filled in. Looking back in time once again shows us that the writers were parents, teachers and older siblings. Not any longer. TV came along and entered virtually every home in our country. This new media was a golden opportunity for commercial interests to reach these young minds in pictures and words. To write their messages on these uncluttered slates to begin creating preference for their offerings while young minds are still malleable. They did it with toys, cigarettes, soft drinks and games. Today, they do it with video games, computers, cell phones and more. You just can’t escape the never-ending impressions on young minds.

It’s pretty clear that commercial interests hold the chalk, isn’t it?

What Happened to the Influence of Parents and Teachers?

It wouldn’t be fair to say that parents and teachers just don’t care anymore, because there are many that do. But there are other socioeconomic factors that have come into play and given the commercial interests an edge. One of these is the very-large number of single parent families. Many single parents hold down one or two full-time jobs, which leaves little time to compete with that TV set. They just don’t have the time to write as many impressions on those blank slates as they used to.

Then, there’s social pressure to which kids are very vulnerable. They feel the pressure to keep up with their peers. To have what they have—or more. And, after all, that one-eyed monster in their living room, den or bedroom keeps telling them how much fun their missing without the latest video game system and a potpourri of new games.

Writing These Messages on the Slates Means Tough Times Ahead!

When we relegate our influence to all those folks out there selling things, are we setting our kids up for a bumpy road ahead? Undoubtedly so. And while it’s plain that there are many single-parent families, victims of the current recession and others who, by necessity, spend most of their waking hours dealing with problems, can we really afford to leave writing on these slates to others? I think not!