What is up with the foreigners pretending to be local/American on dating websites?

[malamute]

Originally Posted by sushi66

I've spend some time on Yahoo, Match and Eharmony. Approximately 80% of the "men" I heard from on yahoo and match were foreigners pretending to be in my city. On eharmony it was more like 40%. At first it took me a while to figure out but now I can usually see it on first contact. Their profile paragraphs are strangely pasted together with capitals and punctuation in the wrong place, their use of English is awkward (i.e. some guy described himself as "svelte" probably thinking it was exactly the same as saying he's thin), their photos are of good-looking guys that appear to be from advertisements, they are usually widowed (because that's better than divorced, I suppose??), they immediately claim their love and devotion, and soon explain that they're with a traveling soccer team or some-such in a foreign country but will be "home" soon...

Now, in order for these people to contact members (as opposed to "winks" or "icebreakers" or whatever), they have to actually pay for the service. I'm not clear on why this is worth it. If out of every 100 women they contact, they hit one who is inexperienced enough to fall for this (like those women who've been on Oprah, Dateline, etc), maybe will send him money so he can supposedly "come visit" or whatever the arrangement might be, is that the game? It just doesn't seem that they'd find enough women to fall for it to make it worth the initial cost and time spent.

My guess is money scams and green card visas.

[woxyroxme]

Anyone capable of stealing your identity can easily put up a fake profile on a dating website, and then it's Me clean out your bank account long time.

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[Gudra]

Yes, do beware of these money-laundering scams. Just found out a friend of mine was detained by police after she sent some money to someone ''in need''.