Colonel in the US Army in Afghanistan by: Anonymous
I met a Colonel in the US Army on Match.com. He said he was widowed 3 years ago and has 2 children. He is 59 years old and the children are ages 8 and 12 being cared for by a nanny while he's stationed in Afghanistan. He is supposed to retire in a few weeks and wants to settle down with the right woman to share the rest of his life with in the US.
Now I've found out he is impersonating (pictures, name, rank etc) a REAL Colonel who is now a General. The real person is married, has grown children and these children are his grandchildren. He is a very handsome man and has been used in scams hundreds of times I discovered. He said he was in Special Forces which means a secretive mission so he said I wouldn't find any verification of his identity and he needed to go to private email due to not being able to put very much about himself on the dating site messaging.
I Googled searched the images of his pictures but they didn't come up anywhere else on the internet but that isn't always conclusive. He couldn't Skype his picture but could see mine and his phone had been dropped in the water and wasn't working right so he could hear me but I couldn't hear anything so we did the gmail chatline.
So this is a scenario a little different than the others I read here and thought it may help someone else. I found that Christian Mingle does the most in removing suspicious profiles of the 4 I've tried...and there are a LOT of suspicious ones on all of them it seems. I tried Senior People Meet, Christian Cafe, Match.com and Christian Mingle.
In verifying a person, I do the Google image search, search whatever I have ie. email, name, phone #, DOB, with services like PeopleFinders.com or Spokeo.com etc but that's not always up to date. When I have name and city, state I check their local newspaper for anything on them from their community activities, articles on promotion or notice of divorce or obits on their family member they may have mentioned, children or grandchildren notices of birth...just some ideas.
But REMEMBER that if they are impersonating a real person this stuff may all be verifiable but doesn't mean that's who you're communicating with. If you stick to people within a radius of miles where you live, it's easier to verify them and meet them so that may make the relationship more accountable such as visiting their church with them or something.
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Lets fight the scammers by: Anonymous
Thank you for sharing your story.
Is only by spreading the news of the many unpleasant experiences we have that we can warn others who are not as alert or more naive and may fall into the love trap.
Is a pity cause there are many good men and women that could have used these resources to end their lonliness, but the scammers have ruined their chances.
