MasterCaneman
Posts: 3842
Joined: 3/21/2013 Status: offline
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I've been following this thread since it started, and I wanted to get some info before jumping in today. I'm going to focus on your fourth point, making your profile stand out and that there are potential takers who need money and are willing to relocate. In your profile, you make noises that you are into good money, so why don't you try this approach. 1. Actually start a conversation with them before demanding for "verification" (e.g. Skype or cams). Yes, I know a skilled scammer will be able to give good conversation, but here's the next part. Offer to go to them first before you offer any compensation for them to move in with you. Is it so hard to take a weekend and hop a plane to meet someone in a vanilla setting on their home turf? If anything, it'd prove to the "real" ones that you are who you say you are. 2. Okay, maybe you can't do what I suggested in #1. Here's another idea: get to know them online, and then hire a PI to follow-up for you. I have a good friend here in town who's a retired cop who does just that. Every week his company gets requests from men and women to do a proper background check on people, usually before they get married. Many times it's one of the primaries involved, usually the female half, who wants to know if they're getting hitched to Mr. Right or Mr. Hyde. Sounds creepy, but it happens every day. He told me they have three full-time computer investigators who can pretty well find anything you want to know about someone online, and then they hand their findings off to him to do the old-fashioned follow-ups. It's not cheap, but when its done right, you'll know exactly who and what you're dealing with. 3. Ask yourself why someone would be willing to relocate to you. Are they in trouble with the law? Trying to escape a relationship? Heavily in debt? Or a combination of all three or more? If you're serious about doing this, you're going to pay a lot of money anyway in the "relocation" deal, so why not spend a little on the "research" end of it. I'm sure I'll catch some flak for this, but I do believe that while there are scammers out there using this gambit, there may indeed be someone who's sincere about doing this. It would serve both parties to do a little legwork beforehand. Again, just my two cents on this subject...
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