Being a 30 plus single person you may find it shocking that I might occasionally peruse the murky world of online dating.
However living in a home in the rolling foothills of El Dorado County, close to a winery and with a newly installed wi-fi connection, the temptation was too great.
As a regular Facebook user and cheap skate, I noticed an application, called “are you interested.” The purpose of this is to match up various single Facebook users who are not already matched up. So with nothing better to do I decided to give it a try.
One of the suggestions was a 28-year-old woman from Colorado named Ema Witte.
After an initial e-mail reply asking about me, the poor grammar of phrases such as “I not in state” instead of “ I’m not in the states” should have been an automatic give-away, even if she was claiming to be German?
The lady in question told a story that her parent died and she was living with a friend in Colorado when she ran off with a man to his home country of Benin where he robbed her and left her with a $650.00 hotel bill?
As it turned out this damsel in distress said she needed $375.00 to pay the hotel in Benin so she could have her passport returned to her.
My curiosity lead me to do a googel search of the name Ema Witte; I wanted to know why she didn’t know anyone after growing-up and living in America?
It turns out that there is a well-known scammer by the name of Emma Jane Witte.
I was directed to a site, delphifaq.com where several men in France and the United States had been victims of this person.
After seeing the Information I copied it and sent it to the lady in question with the title “I saw something interesting”.
I received a reply in which they thought it was “funny”.
I began to wonder, was there even a person named Emma Witte or Emma Witter?
Apparently there is a 19-year-old model in London, England named Emma Witter whose face looks strikingly like that of the Ema Witte who has e-mail myself and others on Facebook.
According to dangersofinternetdating.com one of the hallmarks of a Nigerian 419 scam as they are called is that the scammers download photos from models’ websites and then use them to set-up phony accounts.
In fact there are 10 Facebook accounts with the name Ema Witte, Emma Jane Witte or Emma Witter or some variation.
According to the FBI’s press release of 04/03/08, in 2007 there were over 200,000 complaints of inter-net based fraud. These reported scams netted a total of $240 Million dollars.
So after all this, one might listen to the old Waylon Jennings song "looking for love (in all the wrong places)", and wounder if in fact it is possibale to find genuine relationships in our cyber world of hustles & scams.
It's probably safer to just go to the local bar and buy someone a round.
It's probably safer to just go to the local bar and buy someone a round.
Interesting column, mixing the personal with the scamming story.
ReplyDeleteThe approach might have worked better if the writer started out with the idea of the scam, then said he was almost a victim, then back to the premise that going to a bar is a safer deal.
And nice touch with the Waylon Jennings reference, though Johnny Lee (who recorded the song) would have worked too.