Are You Falling In Love, Or Falling For A Scam?

On July 16, 2010, in Westchester County, New York, a man named Solomon Jesus Nasser pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree grand larceny, after stealing nearly $200,000 over a course of three years.

His victims were women he'd met through online dating services. Nasser won the trust and admiration of his targets by claiming to be an advisor to President George W. Bush, a high-ranking official in the Department of Defense, and a Navy admiral, among other things. He would then mention that he was having financial difficulties as a result of legal issues, and subsequently would ask for loans to cover his living expenses.

Now that his online dating scam has been exposed, Nasser has been ordered to pay restitution, and faces up to seven years in prison.

It's a tragic story, but there have been many others just like it. The Internet is a wonderful tool for finding love, but falling in love means letting your guard down, and letting your guard down online can sometimes mean disaster. Most online dating sites do not perform background checks or other verification procedures on new members, and the sites that do claim to take precautions such as these are frequently not able to perform the services effectively. It's up to you, then, to protect yourself against online criminals.

Beware of the following four widespread scams when looking for love online:

1. Phone calls that will cost you a fortune. Dial with caution. Calling certain phone numbers will cause charges of hundreds of dollars to appear on your next phone bill. Only contact numbers with area codes you recognize or - better yet - use a VOIP client like Skype so that your personal phone number remains private and require interested members to contact you.

2. Fake profiles. Steer clear of profiles with sexually explicit usernames, profile pictures, and written content. They are almost always sex workers looking for paying clients, not people looking for dinner-and-a-movie dates with potential love matches.

3. Lies about long-distance love. One of the major advantages of online dating is that it allows you to connect with individuals all over the world, but the Internet's global reach can also make it a dangerous place to meet people. Scammers in foreign countries often build rapport with victims and then ask for money for airfare so that they can meet their "dates" in person. Never offer to pay for someone's travel expenses - odds are, you will stop hearing from them as soon as the money is transferred.

4. The Nigerian scam. Also known as the 419 fraud, this is a classic Web-based con that can be found almost everywhere online. In comes in many guises, but typical manifestations of the scam involve a person posing as a government or bank employee (or someone related to such a person) and making requests like:

• Asking to transfer a large sum of money into your bank account.

• Offering to pay you to cash checks and send them the money.

• Appealing to you to help a dying person give his money to charity.

Do not ever send money to or accept money from someone on an online dating site, no matter how safe it seems.

You can't always protect a vulnerable heart from being broken, but you can protect a vulnerable bank account from being the victim of an online scam.