Looking For Your Perfect Mate.

By Jim Demetrios

If you’ve ever been to an online dating site you may have been overwhelmed with all the dfferents profiles who, like you, are looking for that perfect mate. There is so much information to process for a free you can easily join any site and start contacting the other members on the site.
Looking For Your Perfect Mate will address the scams that happen on these online dating sites and will make you aware of all the red flags that exist. Using real life stories from people that actually got scammed this book will prepare you for anything your may encounter I the online dating game.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Demetrios
• Release date: May 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463097670

Book preview

Jim Demetrios

LOOKING FOR YOUR PERFECT MATE

Everything you need to know about Online Dating Scams

Smashwords 2018

Table of Contents

Part One: What is a Scam?

1. Introduction

2. The Scam

3. The Warning Signs: Red Flags

4. Protect Yourself: Rules of Thumb

5. Have You Been Scammed?

6. Terminology

7. The Dating Sites: Let’s Rate Them

8. Red Flags Revisited

9. The Dating Sites: Ones to Use and Ones to Avoid

10. Social Media

11. Email and Text

12. In Person

13. Real Life Stories

14. Expect Success, Prepare for Failure

15. Prevalent Red Flags

16. Safety on the Internet

17. Security

18. Online Dating Behaviors

Conclusion

Part One:

What is a Scam?

1. Introduction

What is a Scam? Scam (noun): A dishonest scheme. A fraud.

I had no intention of writing about scams, especially dating scams. A year ago I was married, didn’t think I would get divorced, and the last thing on my mind was getting online and trying to find a companion.

But it happened. Last year, after visiting Cyprus for 11 months, I moved back to New York City to be with my then beloved wife. However, upon my return, I suddenly became very ill. As we all know, those people that you consider friends or loved ones will eventually get to prove themselves one way or the other when circumstances are the most dire and you need them the most. With that said, when I fell ill my wife met another and left me. Within four months, we divorced. You can read all about my different challenges during that year by reading my first book, Destination Cyprus.

After she left, I discovered that most of the people I had known in New York had moved on with their lives. A year away is a very long time. A very close friend remarried and moved to Connecticut. My business contacts had gone to other providers and my best friend had died.

There were no available women that I knew of. I was always faithful with my ex. I wish I could say the same about her. She met some beer-chugging loser musician and just moved out.

Anyway, after my divorce, as the shock was wearing off I felt I needed to get back into the social circles, develop new friends, romantic escapades and be as productive as possible. I decided to get online and look for a date or a mate. I really had no clue how to proceed. I read all I could about the subject and the pros and cons of online dating. And though I told myself that it was not a big deal whether I met anyone appropriate on the site, I was looking forward to the adventure, planning to proceed with caution. And who knows—maybe I would meet my match. At the very least I would date and try to rediscover myself. And, like most people, I thought that I was pretty smart and wouldn’t fall for any scam.

But looking back, even though I did a little research, I went in blind and made some mistakes. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes. They can be expensive, emotionally taxing and even dangerous.

This book is not about my adventures, though I will tell you about parts of my journey. The emphasis is on what we should look out for as we search for that perfect mate—whether it’s for the evening or for the rest of our lives.

My goal was to write a book about scams. I was going to be general and discuss the Lottery Scam from Jamaica, the Nigerian scams, the Ghana deceptions and so many more. So I gathered a team of researchers. As we turned up more and more scams, we became overwhelmed. And as we did more and more research we found that the stories from the actual people that got scammed were fascinating. At times, many times, seemingly brilliant people fell for a story that they wanted to believe, though their gut told them otherwise.

So we decided to author a series of books on scams, beginning with this one, which discusses online dating, the scams, what to look for and includes sometimes humorous and sometimes heartbreaking stories from those individuals who were deceived. We also included a couple of interviews from those that were actually scammed. Throughout this book we will discuss what you can do to keep yourself, your integrity and your money safe. With that, we will review each case and point out each red flag. And yes, there will always be red flags.

2. The Scam

Online Dating Scammers take advantage of people looking for romantic partners, often via dating websites, apps or social media, by pretending to be prospective companions. They prey on emotional triggers to get you to provide money, gifts or personal details.

You will hear the word Catfish. There is even a program of the same