OMG Internet Scammers

When I receive mail, I stand over the trash can to throw away junk mail, put the bills in a "to do" file, and place the magazine in my work bag for later reading. Although I subscribe to a plethora of magazines, "Singular" was not among them. It almost got thrown away -- however, I guess the glossy cover gave it a reprieve.

One of the articles that caught my attention was about on-line romance scammers. I guess the reason it was of interest to me, is because recently I helped a friend create his profile. He had no clue about the rules on internet dating sites. Never put down your birthday, or income...I hope the rationale for this makes sense.

Shortly after his profile went on-line, he was innundated with "beautiful" women from all over the world vying for his attention. He was really naive; he thought that the pictures were:
1. recent photos
2. actual pictures of the person he was corresponding with
3. not men posing as women.

These are the rules I gave him:
1. Schedule a face-to-face meeting as soon as possible (this won't give people time to have that emergency liposuction, or sex change operation :-)
2. If they are out of the country, or even out of Southern California (PASS on these potential matches). These are the people who can make a case for you offer them financial assistance. Invariably, they may need cash to: Get to L.A., renew their passport, etc. Once again, I say "Pass"
3. Don't settle. There a thousands of people on various web-sites...if you're looking for a financially stable Christian , of a certain ethnicity, who lives within 30 miles of you, don't begin communicating (and possibly getting the hopes up) with an atheist, who lives in Eastern Asia.
4. Be truthful (but only) to a certain extent. While you want to post recent photos (after all, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"), and write a profile that really gives a sense of who you are, your likes, and dislikes, etc, it may not be wise to give information that allows a stalker or scammer to find you.
5. First dates should always be "easy exit" meetings. I suggest meeting "daylight dates" (you remember them from Jr. High (now called Middle School) one of the many local coffee shops equidistance between the 2 parties. This way, if party A doesn't show up, party B didn't travel too teribbly far.
6. My final rule. Have the attitude that you're going to meet some interesting people -- I wouldn't advise going in with the expectation that you will meet the love of your life...but I promise, you'll have a ball as long as you're open to meeting a cadre of characters.

Actually some of the other articles weren't that bad. I even tore out a couple of pages relating to bargains. Even with the economy in the dumps, there still seems to be a number of people who would rather go to HE** than to clip coupons or shop at one of my favorite stores, the Nordstrom Rack.

Because I subscribe to more than enough magazines, mostly related to business, finance, exercise, purchasing, and holistic health, I wasn't in the market or the mood for (yet another entrance into the "do I really want to know this?") another frivolous magazine (a la "O", Jet, Vogue, Redbook--- you fill in the rest...

Although I'm not going to subscribe to this magazine, from time to time, I may log onto their web-site, www.singularcity.com, and read articles of interest. I really like living in this age of technology...as we can get information on interest on-line without the hassles of what to do with magazines and books. As often as I can, I try to review information on the internet.