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From Russia with love and a scam
(Business Day (South Africa) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)From Russia with love and a scam Information Technology Editor GULLIBLE men hoping to find love on the internet are at risk of being fleeced by Russian syndicates, a local dating website has warned.
At least three South Africans had lost $2000 after sending money so their on-line girlfriends could buy ticket to SA, said Duncan Forrest, founder of DatingBuzz, which runs about 100 local and international dating sites.
A lot of men are quite gullible, Forrest said yesterday. The perception is that Russian women are desperate to get out. If there's a sexy young blonde a lot of middle-aged farmers who don't think the same kind of woman in SA would look at them think they have a chance with a Russian woman, he said.
After two or three e-mails the woman offers to join her beau, and asks him to send $2000 to a travel agent in Russia to pay for a ticket. On the day she's due to leave there will be a family tragedy that prevents her from coming, and that's the last he ever sees of his $2000, said Forrest.
It is unknown how many local lonely hearts had been broken by the scam, he said. The problem is international, however, and one dating website, www.womenrussia.com, publishes a blacklist of known scammers with the photographs they use and the e-mails they send.
International site Reciprodate says more than 99% of people who use match-making sites are genuine, but it warns that criminals do prey on unsuspecting victims. Reciprodate screens all potential members before letting them join, and collaborates with law-enforcement agencies to catch criminals using its site for scams. One man in California was ordered to repay $737521 to 250 victims recently after posing as Russian women seeking marriage.
DatingBuzz, which has a 63% market share of SA's on-line dating market, refuses to accept subscriptions from Russians that are paid for by credit card, unless the person faxes through an imprint of the card and a copy of a bank statement to prove the card has not been stolen.
It eliminates about 10 personal profiles each week that it suspects of being set up as a front for Russian syndicates. The latest threat comes from Elena, who used a stolen US credit card and paid her subscription via a hijacked computer in the US, to hide the fact that she was operating from Russia. DatingBuzz MD David Burstein said Elena had contacted about 500 men around the world claiming that she would be arriving in their countries next week and asking to meet them.
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