Christian Filipina Blog

An Example of a Scammer Targeting Ladies

Every single day, we have applications for members to our site from criminals who seek to prey on our members and steal from our members.  Usually, we have become quite good at recognizing their applications for membership.  And we deny them membership.  But sometimes we miss one of these criminals, and by mistake we allow them to be members of the site.  Here is an example of one of the criminals who joined our site about 1 week ago and tricked us.

The profile was for “Frederick Bundchen” who claimed to be from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, United States.  This is what he wrote in his profile:

I am patient,generous, kind, and loving. I am always upbeat, have a positive attitude about most things and I like to have fun. I like football,movies,swimming,dancing,cooking,singing in the choir at church,listening to music,shopping,taking walks at night and looking at the stars,watching the sunset,eating at a very nice restaurant and going to live concerts,theater, movies and art. I love to travel, and to go sightseeing. I love museums, romantic dinners,…..And I am a fun loving person who loves to laugh and make others laugh. I always try to enjoy the simple things in life,and not take anything for granted.I’ve a naturally curious mind and love to learn about peoples, cultures, and so many other things…I love romantic dinners,

The profile included pictures of a man, a woman, and a boy about 5 years old.

We approved this application for membership in the site.  Then the member upgraded the membership by paying using a credit card and began contacting members sending ladies his email address federickbundchen@yahoo.com.  When one of our lady members wrote to the man, he responded by claiming he wanted to hire a nanny and was going to help the lady get a visa to the USA to be the nanny.  Here are the emails he sent:

Hello Dear,

Thanks for your reply and interest in the job I am really willing to get a Driver and Nanny down to the US soon and I told you that i am going to Pay you 3,000Sdollars a month and that will be for the Up keep of Driver and Nanny to where ever. I have Duplex Building with 8 Bedrooms and 2 living rooms and that is all I Want you to take care of You’ll have a room to yourself with a complete Working system with internet facilities which Will enable you communicate with your friends And Family daily.
The reason why I need a driver and Nanny is because I will be moving out of city due to official duty .Now I have to go on a naval course for 6 months And I need a Driver and Nanny in aupair to take care of my kids I understand that you might not have your Visa processed yet and I have already discussed With the United state Immigration service about My intention to get the service of a Driver and Nanny to Take care of my kids while I am on national Duty…..Since I am a Naval officer and I hardly Stay at home…So this is how I intend to make Everything work…
I will give you the email of the immigration Office as well as my Naval license ID number so That they will know that I directed you to the Immigration office for the processing of your Visa…..I will take good care of your departure and arrival to the US when your Visa processing is Completed…But you will have to pay for your Visa registration fee yourself which cost about $225US.
This is because The Immigration has mandated it that the Applicant will address the Visa Registration fee because the payment Receipt will be attached to your papers and The name on it will be used for the processing of all your Papers….and when the processing get done,it will be sent to you via a courier service.More over alert will send to US immigration,US embassy and POEA in your home country as soon as your visa is ready and you will be call for interview .The reason why you have to pay for your Visa registration Yourself is because the immigration office has made it Compulsory that it is the applicant who pays for Her visa registration because I have once been Cheated by a Filipino whom I paid all her expense And when he got his papers, he did not show up to me…So the thing is this, i am going to help you mak sure that you get your visa at all cost. With my influence……I really need a honest and sincere person to work for me…. I think the registration fee for Asia foreigners hoping to work in the US is 225USdollars so that is all they will ask you to pay and the rest will be my doing about 4,700USdollar …I will check out Philippine Work abroad agencies and i will make sure all is set For you. This is all that I have planned down so if you are OK with it, do mail me back. But if you will ask Me to pay your Visa Registration fee for you, please Don’t write me back.Contact me back only if you are ready for this or Maybe I should just get someone else as this is Very important and urgent…Please get back to Me by email only.. I will be away for 6 months and you Will be the one taking care of my safety.
Mr Frederick B Underway Navy.
US Naval Officer

and also this message:

Thanks for your Kind message and interest to Go further with this offer.Immigration will only ask you to pay for visa registration fee which is $225US,I will be the one to pay for your visa placement and airfare total cost $4700US…now I am convinced that I have someone who Will be able to take care of my safety and my home….I am going to write the immigration office to notify them that you will be sending Application for Visa and other traveling Papers and i will have them linked up with you……
They already provided me with the opportunity to bring in 2 foreigner to the US and they have given me the serial code which I am going to give To you. And you will write to them by email and they will know that you are my client and I referred You to them…
I will give you their email and you will email them And tell them you were referred for your visa processing and immigration licensing From Mr……..of the US Naval force…And then you provide them with your immigrant serial code which is Ref: 3829-44632-us-28891-ph And include your full name and address.You are also going to be contacted by the department of foreign affairs over there in your home town and they will get you the necessary documents…..ok?
I am trying to make sure everything get arranged quickly And soon enough. This is the immigrations office E-mail…..usimmigrationdesk@gmail.com
Contact them as soon as possible.
Take care
Best Regards
Mr Frederick B
US Naval Officer 140 barbara circle,Elizabethtown, Kentucky 42701

We were informed of this by one of our careful members who was suspicious about the email she had received.  When we investigated, we suspended the profile of the member immediately because it is clearly a criminal fraud.

As we have written previously many times, do not ever send money to anyone you have never met in person. This applies to men as well as to women.  If you ever have any of our members attempt to ask you for money, please write to us immediately so that we can investigate.

Over time, as our site becomes more popular, we know that more and more scammers will seek to break in.  We see criminal scammers claiming to be from Philippines, USA, Africa, England, China.  We continue to change the way our site works to make it more and more difficult for the scammers to take advantage of our members.  We believe that we have the largest percentage of sincere members of any Asian dating site, and the smallest percentage of insincere, scammers, and criminals, thanks to our custom improvements to our system, our dedication to educating our members about these issues, and to our members who immediately inform us when any other member attempts to trick them.  If you are curious sometime, you may want to visit and join some of the other dating sites and see for yourself how many criminals there are on the internet trying to fool other persons.

Remember, take your time when getting to know anyone, whether it’s someone you meet in person or on our site or on any other internet site.  And never send money to anyone you haven’t met in person.

**UPDATE 8/31/2010**

We just had another scammer who joined our site with a similar “nanny scam” scenario… As with some previous scammers, this member had a profile showing a man with a child.  As with previous apparently-male scammers, the user upgraded his membership with a payment, then sent the following message:

Hello,
My name is james evans,i am sorry for contacting you this way but i believed you are good christain.Am a single father with a son named Dennis Evans,i worked as a construction engineer but self employed and i lived in london.United kingdom.  So am in need of a babysitter for my son and i will be paying you the sum of 500 pounds weekly as your wages,so if you have interest in helping me look after my son and you do have a valid passport.  Send me a message me on my id james_evans00001@yahoo.com for more details of the job and do not take this message as insult if its looks beyond your standard.

James

We have not yet heard of any of our ladies who has fallen prey to any of these scammers who have tried to infiltrate our site.  We hope that we continue with that record, and in order to do so we commit to continuing to educate all of our members about the fraudsters who attempt to join our site, and we commit to continue our high degree of vigilance of our members who apply to join our site.  If at some time, an honest person has his or her profile suspended, we apologize for this.  If this happens to you, please calmly contact us through our feedback form and/or email so that we can investigate closely and fix any error we might make.  We do our best to identify suspicious profiles and research them carefully to suspend them as soon as possible.  Now after reading some of the stories, we hope you understand why we are so careful, occasionally even to a fault.

Cotabato and Mindanao

Over the past year, we have kept an informal record of scammers who have been identified on our site.  We have had scammers claiming to be from the Philippines, the U.S., U.K., Nigeria, and elsewhere, some of whom we know are really from the places they claim to be from, and some whom are not.  We do our best both to remove scammers from our site and to educate our members about this important subject so that they can avoid emotional and financial traps.  As soon as we are sure about any new intelligence, we post it in our letters and blogs, for all our members to read.

Insist On Webcam Chat. Don't Get Tricked!

We have found that ladies from the area of Mindanao tend to be more likely to be scammers, and in particular, those from Cotabato.  All things considered, with the increased quantity of scammers from this area and the increased risks of violence in Mindanao, we now recommend that our members exercise extreme caution with any person from this region.

The behaviors we have seen in the scammers that characterize Cotabato and Mindanao are typical of Philippine scams: fake photos; reluctance to appear on webcam; requests to purchase webcams, computers, cell phones; premature declarations of love; preference for chatting on yahoo messenger rather than on our site; insistence on needing money for many different reasons; form letters; being online all the time; suggestion to circumvent immigration laws; request for excessive money to correct passport or birth certificate problems; they can be of any age but tend to be young, sometimes even in violation of our terms of service they are under 18 and lie about their age on their profile.

We also, however, want to draw your attention to some conversations we have had with one of our contacts who shared with us some of his experience with meeting people from Cotabato in the past.  In these conversations, we learned that some of the ladies claiming to be from Davao, Zamboanga, and elsewhere in Mindanao were actually in or from Cotabato.  This reinforced what we have observed as well.  Even more absurd, many of these ladies who claim to be Catholic or Christian from these areas are actually Muslim.  Many of the Muslims are part of a Muslim clan called Ampatuan which you can read about on your own.  They view outsiders who are not from their clan as enemies and are taught by teachers and parents to steal from enemies as part of holy war.  They are taught that laws of behavior do not apply to the way they treat those outside their clan.  They also work in teams, coming up with schemes to solicit funds; who you talk to one day on a YM might be a different person from the day before which might be a different person from who answers a phone; and a different person may occasionally do a webcam chat and/or receive money sent.  When they are successful, the money that is sent does not go to the poor children or education or medicine, but to the politicians and religious leaders directly, with only a possible commission going to the web scam team.

In this context, we reiterate our guideline recommendations for our members:

• insist on chatting on webcam with those you meet online
• do not send any money to anyone you have met online who you have never met in person
• chat on our christian-filipina.com chat service, rather than yahoo messenger
• familiarize yourself with all of our blog entries, and with stories from others at other sites like dragonladies.org
• if any member ever asks you directly or indirectly for money, report it immediately from their profile page with the ‘report a problem’ feature
• if you have any questions, please email us using the feedback link; if your question involves another member, send it from their profile page

(Added July 20 — ) One final note, we had previously written about one of the scammers from Mindanao, Rosebel (also known as many other names) — here is our previous entry about the scammer Rosebel Fajardo from Mindanao.  After a hiatus, she (or “she” as the case may be, we have no idea of the true identity or identities) has resurfaced, creating at least two profiles in the past week here on our site, one going by “Kiszle” and another as “Lady” but always using her same famous pictures, and lofty lies.  No doubt she’ll be back; we hope to catch her before her profile goes live, but if she tricks us and you notice her here again, please be sure to let us know!

Do Women Get Scammed on Dating Websites?

We’ve devoted several articles in our blog to men who have been scammed by women (or at least they believed they were scammed by women). But we also think it’s important to caution the ladies. Almost every day we reject members who appear to be advertising a nanny scheme.

Most often the profiles we reject from this category claim to be from the U.K. but actually many of this type of scammer are from Nigeria and sometimes other countries in Africa. Those in Nigeria often work with other scammers in U.K. or other countries to create a network of liars who claim to be ready to help ladies get a job as a nanny taking care of children. Since we prohibit this use of our site in any case, we reject these profiles immediately. However, we believe that the intent of these individuals is not to hire nannies at all.   At “best” we believe it is a type of advanced fee fraud, where the ladies will be required to send money in advance to process paperwork – but in fact this money would simply be stolen by the scammers. At worst, the scammers could have something even worse in mind. We have also heard of a type of fraud from another dating website that we described this December blog entry about scammers.  In that case, supposedly a person (also from U.K.) supposedly sent a package.  We believe that actually no package was ever sent, and the victim was going to be asked to send money to help with a problem in the shipping process. Then just a few days ago we noticed in the comments of our recent article describing a specific scam profile that had been on our site, a reference to a scam that apparently had occurred here.  Once again, the scammer claimed to be from the U.K.  Actually that is the first reference we have heard to women being scammed on our site, so we feel quite bad about it. Ladies, remember that you also need to be careful.  No matter the excuse or story, do not send money to anyone you have never met in person, period.  If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are considering this, please write to us right away using the feedback link on the bottom of our website pages and ask whether we think the situation is suspicious. And if ladies or gentlemen are asked by any other member of the site for money, please write to us immediately and send us the user number and if possible the full text of the message.  We will investigate, and in most cases we can learn from your message and other information we store on the site whether that person is a scammer or not. As always, if you have any comments to add relating to this topic, please feel free to add a comment to this article.

We have also heard of a type of fraud from another dating website that we described this December blog entry about scammers. In that case, supposedly a person (also from U.K.) supposedly sent a package. We believe that actually no package was ever sent, and the victim was going to be asked to send money to help with a problem in the shipping process.

Then just a few days ago we noticed in the comments of our recent article describing a specific scam profile that had been on our site, a reference to a scam that apparently had occurred here. Once again, the scammer claimed to be from the U.K. Actually that is the first reference we have heard to women actually being scammed on our site, so we feel quite bad about it.

Ladies, remember that you also need to be careful. No matter the excuse or story, do not send money to anyone you have never met in person, period. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are considering this, please write to us right away using the feedback link on the bottom of our website pages and ask whether we think the situation is suspicious.

And if ladies or gentlemen are asked by any other member of the site for money, please write to us immediately and send us the user number and if possible the full text of the message. We will investigate, and in most cases we can learn from your message and other information we store on the site whether that person is a scammer or not.

As always, if you have any comments to add relating to this topic, please feel free to add a comment to this article.

A Profile of a Repeat Scammer From Mindanao, Philippines

Beware Scammers Who Use Pictures Like This One

We have several criminals who repeatedly create profiles on our site to solicit money from our members.  Most of the profiles they attempt to create never go live on the site, because we eliminate them in the approval process.  However, from time to time we miss one.  Here is an example of one we missed recently.  We are ashamed that we missed this one, because this individual has already stolen thousands of dollars from members at our site.  Her name goes by various phrasings of a common theme, and her profiles with ages in the 20s have phrases like “Relationships are just like a receipe or a mirror. What ever you put in you will get back. Just to let you know. I am a Christian. However, I don`t practice my faith like others.” and “My future man may go to church as he feels necessary though ~>Someone who believes in UNCONDITIONAL LOVE When you need someone to encourage you, I want it to be me.”  In other words, this scammer and others like her know exactly what to write to appear sincere, and yet she is a deceitful person.  She even has phrases like, “I VALUE NOTHING MORE THAN HONESTY ! IT IS THE FOUNDATION OF EVERY SOLID RELATIONSHIP AND ENCOURAGES TRUST AND RESPECT ! I DESPISE LIARS !LOVE IS NOT WONDERING HOW LONG IT WILL LAST BUT HOW STRONG 2 HEARTS CAN MAKE IT GROW!”  How many innocent men has she charmed with these borrowed phrases?  We suspect that based on the money she has stolen from members of this site and probably other sites, this criminal steals around $20,000 per year.  Don’t let yourself be one of the victims of this person or anyone like her.

This individual represents the epitome of the criminals who live by taking advantage of others.  Here is an example of one of her emails to one member:

First of all, I want to thank you for reviewing my profile and reading my Personalized Introductory Letter. I know it’s not possible to tell everything about ourselves in just one email.

First let me tell you that I am serious about finding a man to marry. I’m not looking for a pen pal, etc. All I’m looking for is a man that’s sincere about developing a loving, honest, open relationship that might lead to a future marriage. That sounds simple doesn’t it? We both know something as big as getting married never really is all that easy though. Not if you want to do the best you can and make sure you’re finding that special someone you can love and spend the rest of your life with.

if you like to connect or to have a fruitful communications this is my email address were we cant start getting to know each others well..my private email monique.fajardo20@yahoo.com let me know if you email me..okay..

Affectionately yours,
Rosebel

Typical Indecent Picture - Any Member Who Is Not Modest, Who Posts Pictures With Revealed Shoulders or Legs on A Christian Site, Is Not Respectful

Some items that should immediately raise your suspicion:

1. she attempts to include a personal email in an initial contact.  Contact information like this is prohibited in exchanges between free level members according to our terms of service.  Indeed, we catch many scammers based on this, followed by additional research.  We strongly encourage you to never give out your email address or to contact any other member except through the site’s messaging and chat features.  This is because the criminals like this one know we monitor site communications, so they attempt as quickly as possible to get away from the site that they can fool our members without us catching them.
2. her pictures are indecent and vain
3. she’s too confident and formal; clearly she’s sending a form letter
4. she just joined recently

What should you do if you encounter someone you think is a scammer?

1. If you aren’t sure, you can always email the site owners to ask their opinion – use the Feedback link at the bottom of the page, or reply to any email message from the site
2. Always use our site for communication, and have a firm rule against giving out your personal contact information
3. Inform anyone you are chatting with right away that you have a firm rule against sending money to someone you have not met in person
4. If any member solicits money directly or indirectly plays a guilt game, please forward us the message or text and allow us to take appropriate action.

What should you do if you get tricked by a scammer?

1. Maybe you did not take our advice and decided to send money to someone you met over the internet.  Most likely it did not work out, because it is not the right way to start a mature relationship.  It’s time to learn a lesson.  Don’t do it again.  Please inform us if this happens to you, so that we can permanently remove the member’s profile.  Remember, if anyone comes up with a tall tale about needing money for an operation, or school, or medicine, etc, etc, it is simply a lie.  The same thing goes for sending money for any scheme to try to do some business venture in Nigeria or anywhere else.  It’s simply a vacuous sales pitch.
2. Next time, take our advice – write in your profile (or in your messages) that you have a firm rule against sending money to people you have not met; plan a trip to the Philippines where you will meet several people, and don’t send any money or become emotionally involved with any one until you’ve had the chance to meet several people in person.
3. Take it easy on yourself.  Maybe you lost a lot of money.  Ok, let it go.  It has happened to many other people also.  You are not alone.  We know it hurts.  If it didn’t, you might not be able to learn from it.  Let it go, move on, and be more careful next time.
4. And by all means, if you ever meet someone like this again in person or over the internet, just say, “Sorry, I’ve got to go,” turn around, and go somewhere else to meet people who are more deserving of your company.

Don’t Send Money To Someone You’ve Never Met

Don't confuse charity and love. Offer your companionship but keep your cash.

We’ve written about how we prohibit any of our members from soliciting money through our website.  We’ve also written about how we strongly recommend that our members do not ever send money to someone they have not met in person.  We want to emphasize the importance of this.

Some members understand this advice right away, based on their past experience or our blog entries.  From our correspondence with our members, we also know that some other members refuse to follow our advice.  Let us be as clear as possible – we believe that any relationship in which any money is sent before the two people have met in person, will not work.

We thought we’d make a list of the reasons a person might ask another member for money.  Every single one of these reasons is a manipulation.  No decent person would ever provide tall tales like these to fool people into sending them money.

• I need money to study.
• I need money to eat.
• My family is starving.
• There was just a typhoon, and my family’s house has been washed away.
• The caribou water buffalo died.
• The rice rotted.
• I loaned my family money, and now I owe them.
• I need a new phone to call you.
• I need a computer to write to you.
• I need a better apartment so that you will respect me when you come here.
• The police are demanding a bribe.
• My mother is about to die due to lack of medicine, and they won’t even give her an antibiotic.
• My brother wants to start a business.
• My sister is about to give birth.
• My tuition payment was stolen.
• The jeepney driver broke my phone.
• The police confiscated my brother’s hubel hubel motorcycle and now we can’t earn money.
• I need to get a passport before I meet you.
• I can get a visa to come to your country.
• I can get a visa to meet you in another country.
• I need documents in order to process your visa.
• I need an engagement ring.
• I need to start processing the papers for our engagement.
• My parents are demanding a dowry.
• I want to give my parents a gift.
• I already have a loan at the cybercafe and I have to pay for it.
• My father has a loan due to gambling at the cock-fight, and if I don’t repay it, our house will be repossessed.
• I need load for my phone so that I can receive your call.
• I need to buy a new phone for international calls.
• I need to process a business application to get a good job and they require me to buy the uniform.

We could go on with this list for a very long time.   There is no end of pretexts that people can come up with to try to solicit money.  Just say no.  Here are a few questions and answers on the topic as well.

What should you do when someone you’ve met at our site asks you for money? Our suggestion to you is that you simply send us their user number with our feedback link, and then you correspond with other members instead.  We will investigate it, and in most cases we suspend the user profile. We do not allow anyone to ask for money using our site; we do not think people who ask for money directly or indirectly are ready for relationship (at best) and are often fraudsters or criminals.   We do our best to screen for these types of users, but we also rely on our members to report violations to us to help us keep our members honest.

But is it OK if one person initiates a gift to the other without a request? We hear this all the time.  One member wants to help another member.   Please do not do it.  If you want to send money to the Philippines, please donate it to the Philippine Red Cross.  Visit the Red Cross donations page to make your donation.  They will do a much better job than you can from far away, seeing to it that your donation goes to the neediest people at the times when it is most likely to make a difference.

But we’ve been chatting now for a few weeks.  I just want to give her a phone so I can call. This is also common.  Our advice is don’t do it. By sending money before you have met someone, even just a few dollars, you are risking ruining a potentially good connection.  As soon as someone receives money, then the pressure from family and friends to think of you as an ATM machine starts.  Just don’t risk it.  Save the money, and buy a plane ticket to go visit as soon as possible.  We insist – don’t send money to someone you haven’t met, under any circumstances, for any reason, period.

But I want to surprise her with something nice.  Send her flowers.  You can search for ‘send flowers to the philippines’ on the internet.

If you are ever wondering, “Is this story legitimate, should I send money to this person I met at Christian Filipina”, if you don’t know the answer yet after reading this, just call us or send us an email, and we will talk to you about the particular situation and give you our advice.

Remember, the people who will be most quick to contact you on any dating website will almost always be the criminal scammers.  They work 24 hours a day creating fake profiles and trying to trick others to send money.  Learn to accept that this kind of person may contact you, and just report it, and move on.  As you take your time to get to know more of our members, you’ll find that we have many professional, innocent, and sincere ladies.  They may be more shy, you may need to take the initiative to contact them.  We have thousands and thousands of quality ladies who would never ask for money.  Don’t let the drama of a misguided person prevent you from meeting the sincere partner you deserve.  Take your time, quickly discard any letters from those who don’t deserve your attention, and be patient to slowly get to know five or ten ladies from our site, so that when you plan a trip (hopefully, soon), you can meet three to five in person as friends, to know in person which one deserves your company.

Jen and Peter

Top Mistakes in Dating Filipinas

Getting Excited for the Wrong Reasons Isn't Wise in the Long Run

Since before we met even, we’ve been observing men and women who come from different countries meet, and in many cases get married.  We met and are happily married.  We’ve seen and heard a lot of stories, and based on it, we’ve come up with a list of top mistakes in dating Filipinas.  Before we get into this list, we want to be clear that when we say we are an online dating site, we mean that we are a site where people can meet to become friends first.  We do not believe in premarital or extramarital sex, don’t encourage it, and don’t recommend it. We do believe in commitment, marriage, and family, and when the right person is there, we encourage it.   Some people who have visited other sites with many Filipina members at times get confused and think that online dating must be immoral because we encourage casual sex (we certainly don’t).  Maybe other people or other sites have different definitions of online dating.  We encourage you to find a site where the owners and other members share your basic assumptions about this.

Dishonesty - We believe that for two people to join to form something greater, that honesty is important, and dishonesty is a dangerous poison.  We strongly encourage our members that when they are corresponding or chatting, take the time to make sure what you are saying is true.  Even if you are afraid you might disappoint someone else, it’s far better to be honest from the beginning, rather than start a life based on a lie.  We believe that honesty is the way to develop trust and love, and that dishonesty interferes with our ability to trust and love one another.  If what you are looking for is power, sex, money, or status, I’m sorry but that’s not compatible with the atmosphere we try to nourish here.  We encourage those who seek to fulfill the guidance to love one another, and who believe that requires honesty, to take the time to join our site and meet fellow believers.

Obsession With Appearances – We recommend that our members focus more on profile text, and messages, rather than photographs.  First of all, this is because as much as we would like to be able to guarantee that a member’s photos are of the member, we can’t guarantee that, and we know for a fact that some members post pictures of other people.  But most of our members who have posted photos are posting photos of themselves.  Yet we still recommend that our members do not pay the photos much attention.  One of the less-appreciated aspects of human relations is that single people might look less attractive because they feel loney; but later in the company of a caring partner, they may blossom through confidence to be more attractive in the eyes of anyone who was paying attention.  On this same topic, about once a week, we get an email from one of our gentleman who is inquiring about a lady from our site, and when we look at the lady’s profile, we see a picture that looks like it could be from an advertisement for bikinis, full of curves or cleavage.  (We delete the pictures immediately.)  We believe that these kinds of pictures are not of ladies who are mature enough to have healthy relations of any kind with anyone.  We recommend you avoid them.  Unless you are a man who is obsessed with his own appearances, who cares more about his looks than his actions, then you will have a values conflict with a lady who is obsessed with her appearance.  It’s important to think about what your values are, and to find people who have compatible values.  This is much more important than trying to meet people who remind us of advertising models.

Getting Too Excited About Easy, Outgoing Ladies - It’s natural that we can get excited if we write a note and the recipient responds very quickly.  But is that actually a good sign?  More likely, if you get a response right away, you’re dealing with a professional scammer who is spending all day at the computer.  It’s actually a much better sign if you have to wait a day or two for a response.  Likewise, if you find yourself very excited because someone is very outgoing, forward, and not shy, not humble, you might want to take things a bit more slowly.  Many of our finest ladies are conservative and/or shy.  They may not want to post photos of themselves, they may not have any experience with meeting men in a context like this, and might be shy and more innocent.  This doesn’t mean they are not worth getting to know, however.  But it does mean you might need to make more of an effort.  Think about it.  The ladies who are very upfront, outgoing, aggressive even, might be easy;but do you think they will be faithful, humble, obedient?  We recommend that our members should make a special effort to write to especially those members who don’t have pictures and who might have short descriptions.  It only takes a few moments to write a short message, and you never know what beautiful gem you might find hidden beneath modesty.

Sending Money - We believe that a person who is not responsible for his or her own financial situation isn’t ready to look for a partner.    You may have even been tricked by someone who isn’t the one in the pictures, who may not even have the name or even gender or ethnicity of the one you believe you’re talking to.  We strongly discourage our members from sending money to anyone they meet online who they have not yet met.  In fact, it’s against our terms of service to request another member send money.  Please report any member who does this, whether it’s in a private message in our site, in our chat, or in a message or chat on another service.  We suspend these members immediately, as they have nothing to offer our membership.  If any member asks you to send money, whether it’s for internet fees, clothes, food, medicine, cell phone, debt, tuition, or anything else, just say no —  forward the message to us, forget about that person, and move on.  We have thousands upon thousands of quality members, and there’s no use wasting one more minute of your time if you’ve found that one of your chat mates behaves in this way.  There is no excuse for it.  If you have any questions, please email or call us.

Failing to Verify Basic Identity And Other Web-Chat Mistakes- We offer a webcam chat service for our upgraded members.  Other services, like yahoo and skype and gmail, also offer chat services that allow you to see another person on webcam.  (We believe ours is the best option for our members, because when you chat using our service, you do not need to share your messenger address with others, and you are protected by our terms of service.  If you give out your yahoo or skype id, you may find that it can be sent from person to person, and you may receive everything from solicitations for paid cam sex to bank card fraud.  We encourage you to use our site for your messages and chats, because other members will be held accountable for what they say to you and they will be suspended if they break our terms of service.  If someone asks you to leave our site for whatever reason to go to another chat service, and then solicits money there, simply report the member, and we will suspend them from our site.  We have a zero tolerance policy for this.)  In any case, you should always be sure to chat with any new contact using some form of webcam chat.  You should verify that they are the person from the pictures, and you should verify that they are the one typing.  Before I met my wife, I personally had an experience where I thought I was chatting with a person online, but was not careful, and then when I actually met the person, it became clear that she hadn’t been typing at all – she didn’t know how to type or even read or speak English – and that one of her friends had been typing while she sat at the webcam.  This stuff happens, and you need to insist that you see the hands of the person you are typing with at least once, to see that they are typing.  While you are chatting, you should also pay careful attention — is your chat mate also trying to chat with other people at the same time?  If so, forget about her, and find someone who gives you the attention you deserve.

Trying to Impress the Parents / Failing to Be Romantic / Taking it Too Fast In Person – While it’s definitely true that family ties are close in the Philippines, and that the opinions of family members are important, if you are chatting with a lady, or meet her in person, remember to be romantic with her!  Bring her a flower, or a card, tell her she is beautiful, listen to her and talk to her, wink at her.   In general, don’t be the one to bring up talking with anyone in her family about a developing affection.  If she brings that up, ok, but you should talk about your affection with her, not them, and allow it to develop by talking with her about it or just spending time with her.  Most likely she’ll always bring along someone from her family when you meet anyway.  You can talk with the others, but remember that she’s your focus.  If you’re still just meeting for the first or second time, you don’t have to be overly romantic.  Just one flower and one nice comment is enough.  More can be overwhelming.  Just take it easy.  Meet for a short meal, and then go your own separate ways, and later arrange for another meeting a few days later.  When you first meet in person after meeting online, it will take some time to adjust.  It’s like starting all over, so take it from the top.  Ask important questions, but ask them casually, questions about her education, family history, family obligations, experience with travel.  Don’t ask anything that might be too embarrassing in front of her friends or family.

Falling In Love Online Without Meeting In Person - We recommend to our members who are serious to meet someone in the Philippines, that they plan a trip.  Perhaps a two-week trip three months away.   Then try to meet five to ten people online as friends who you’d like to meet in person.  When you meet them in person on your trip, you can see whether what you had inferred or been told was correct, and see what feels comfortable.  You can even take notes; there’s nothing wrong with being careful and disciplined at such an important time.  A respectable Filipina would never object to you being careful and deliberate.   Don’t rush into passion right away.  Try to make sure you have a match of values first.  Is it more important to live for the present, or plan for the future?  Children?  What church?  Do you like gardening, or prefer spending time at the computer or in the library?  Riding Harleys, scooters, public transportation, new BMWs, or ratty old cars?  Of course many people can embrace new aspects of life when they meet new people, but make sure there is also enough foundation of commonality.  We have had members who have met online and then not met any other members, just stuck with the first person they’ve met, and it’s turned out well for them.  If this is God’s plan, then we can’t object.  But we nevertheless think God would still approve of a couple that is meant to be, even if both parties are careful and deliberate and cautious, taking it one step at a time.

Trying To Be Too Cheap - Let’s face it, there are a lot of expenses that are involved in relationships.  Transportation, potential visa costs, travel expenses, time off, relocation expenses.  If it’s between continents, it’s thousands and thousands of dollars, plus months or even years of time.  We have members who try to use their free-level membership as long as possible, or who even try to violate our terms of service and exchange contact information while still free members.  Friends!  Twenty dollars, or fifty, or even a hundred dollars, that you dedicate to membership in a quality website like ours with attentive customer service and thousands of quality members is worth every penny.  So go ahead and upgrade to one of our top membership levels; there’s no need to delay to save a few dollars.  The same thing goes for your first time to meet in person.  Don’t worry if you’re buying lunch for three or four people.  You don’t need to go to an expensive place, and you can set a clear budget – 300 peso to 1000 peso depending on the number of people attending and your lifestyle – but it’s ok to spend something to enjoy the company and the service.

If you have any other tips of “top mistakes” you have heard about, feel free to write to us, or add them as comments so that others can benefit from your experience.

Peter and Jen

Our Recent January 1 Letter: New Profile And Search Options

Search through tens of thousands of our members with improved Power Search functionality.

Here’s our January 1 Letter we sent to all site members:

Happy New Year! I’m writing to you at this time to let you know of some recent developments at our site.

First of all, in response to requests from many members, we have now added new profile settings and search options. If you have not added your denomination, height, weight, and information about any children you have, please log in and click “Edit My Profile” then use the “Edit Additional Information” tab to update your profile. After you have updated this information, your profile will be visible in more searches.

You can also search based on these features (as well as limit your search by country, when a user joined the site or was last active, keyword, and more) by using Power Search. You can always find the Power Search by clicking Power Search from the top center of every page of our website, inside at the bottom of the QuickSearch Box. Be aware that since not all members have updated their details, that you may miss some members by doing a restrictive search. But please try it!

Finally, I want to remind you to check out our blog. This is part of our site where we share suggestions from our staff and other members, where we discuss new features, and where we update you about any news regarding the site. You can always find our blog at christian-filipina.com/blog, or by clicking on Blog from the left menu of our site. This week, for instance, we have an article presenting some testimonials from people who have sadly been scammed and other testimonials (at the end of the same article) from others who have happily met on our site. Please check out these articles and check in with our blog regularly.

As always, we are always here to answer your questions and happy also to hear any comments or suggestions you have concerning the site. Our goal is to provide a meeting place for mature Christians in Asia, and specifically to be a resource for you, our members. We continue to offer the best prices, the best customer service, and the highest percentage of sincere members of any dating site for Asia. We’re proud that you have helped us to build this community.

Best wishes for 2010,

From site owners of christian-filipina.com,

Jen and Pete

Examples of Scammer Fraud on Dating Websites, Advice From Those Who Learned The Hard Way, And Some Good News

Be careful to be conservative. If there's a story that tempts you to pull out your wallet, just call the site management to ask whether you're being taken before you throw away your hard-earned savings.

As we’ve written in the past, in our articles in this blog, fraud is something that we all have to work together to prevent.  At Christian Filipina, we strive to screen out potential members who appear to have questionable motives.  We also screen some of the internal site mail, track login history, and ban users who are reported as violating our terms of service.  This is part of the value we add that our members appreciate and why hundreds and hundreds of our members have become upgraded members on our site.  We also try to keep our members as educated as possible about how fraud can happen over the internet, so that they can understand and take proper action if they find themselves in a situation like this.  Please read our past blog archives, and this letter, if you would like to learn more about these issues.

In our effort to educate, we have in the past given specific examples of fraud that was conducted on our website.  We are going to continue this tradition with this post.  Please fasten your seatbelts.

We make an effort to keep in touch with our members, and to encourage them to ask us questions about specific members, to report violations, and to ask us advice.  The following were collected from several members who unfortunately had bad news to share with us over the past several months.

1. [...] I was new in using the net but should have read the warning. I was deceived and defrauded in a way of $3,503.00. Because I am a born again christian I was too trusting to a woman claiming to be a Christian too,on her profile and thru email and phone. I don’t regret helping but the reasons I was told turn out to be all lies. She claim to be graduating nursing student with balance in school. Then being an orphan raise by grandma and suddenly grandma in hospital so I felt sorry for her and in one month of sept.2009 I sent her that money thru western union. I caught her lying when I asked her the name of all the medicines she claimed to have paid for her grandma and she can’t remember any and yet a graduating nurse? I am a nurse myself so then I knew i was a victim of a scam.   I dig in more on your site and found she was using several profile name.  I knew her as apple, the other names she used are Rhonnie, Kelly,Precela. Her real name is Brina S. Bentolero of 14 camella dr. Zamboanga, zamboanga city 7000. The last Add. she directed me to send her the money was Barra Opol, Cagayan de Oro City. I sent her email  telling her that I will write this net to expose her scam and to warn other Christian men about her being an angel of deception.[...]You can post my letter for others to learn from my experience. I don’t blame the net. [...] Sincerely, [...]
2. [] I was defrauded out of more than a couple thousand dollars. I never thought someone I was trying to help come to the U.S. to work would ever deceive and betray me, but that’s what happened. She was very cunning. Well a person lives and learns. Unfortunately, I thought I knew how to spot and handle a fraud, but I did not. I really got burned. I’m wiser now and know I must use all the tools available to make sure someone isn’t a fraud. Here are a few of the emails sent to me by Paula Reyes and her accomplices. The really sad thing is I thought I was helping someone come to the U.S. to work on a ‘work visa’ they were obtaining and not as a girlfriend. My efforts to help someone backfired. This Paula Reyes was/is part of a scam operation. Apparently she was living in General Santos City and finishing college in August when she initially emailed me. She claimed she had no family and was out of money. She said her mom abandoned her when she was 3 years old. After a few weeks she said she had been offered an “urgent hire” position as a caregiver at El Camino Hospital Foundation in California – which just happened to be in the same City where I lived. Then she claimed she needed to fly to Manila to “out process” with the caregiver agency who hired her. She claimed she needed money to fly to Manila from General Santos City. Then, when in Manila, she claimed to have gotten robbed and cut with a knife which gave her tetanus. Because of this she needed to spend a few days in the hospital…… It goes on and on. The bottom line is she and her accomplices Imelda Cruz and Norma Templado all conspired to extract money from me through this elaborate hoax/fraud. Please inform your website subscribers. I have many, many more emails in addition to these I have attached….

   • Subject: my flight details
     
     From: “paula reyes”
     
     Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 22:50:20 -0800
     To: <>
     
     departure- manila, philippines ( MNL )  fri, 18 sep 2009 22:30
     arrival- san francisco, san francisco international,
     united states of america ( SFO )  fri, 18 sep 2009  20:00
     
     flight- PR104  philippine airlines
     details- economy  non-stop
     
     []by tuesday i need to go to manila to go to the us embassy.
     i need 7,000 pesos fpr my plane ticket going to manila and i
      have to stay there until my flight plus my terminal fee of 150 $
      and room rent and allowance and its 5,000 pesos. []this would be my last wish.
       pls help e. this is it []we will meet soon which is Gods plan.
     7,000 pesos for plane ticket going to manila
     150$ for terminal fee
     5,000 pesos for room rent and food, fare allowances for 1 week
     
     pls help me for this []. thank you so much for making me happy and granted my wish.
     im sure i can have good life in your place and with you.
     may God bless you and guide you always. i miss you
     
     missing you
     paula

   • From:”paula reyes”
     
     Date:Sun, 6 Sep 2009 16:03:32 -0800
     To:[]
     hi [] i got the number of my agency. but if you call my agency today no one will
      answer you coz its holiday here in the philippines.
      but you can call my manager on her mobile phone.
     this is my agency number- +630835529899
     this is my manager number- +639073933167
     [], i already pack my things and i am very much ready here.
     pls pray me to God on my travel. thank you []and may God bless you and guide you always.
     missing you
     paula

   • Subject:Re: []/Paula Reyes
     From:”JRS Agency For Abroad”
     Date:Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:27:32 -0800
     To:”[]
     Mr. [],
     I Just Wan’t To Remind You About Paula’s Account.
     Did She Tell You That She Borrow The 500 US $, Because She Need To Have 1500 US $.
     The Need That To Complete The Amount That She Need To Open A $ Account.
     My Concern Mr. [] Is, That 500 US $ Is An Agency Fund. And I Need To Have It By
     Tomorrow Because The General Management Do A Monthly Audit For This Month.
     That Is My Problem Now Mr. []. If I Don’t Have That They Will Fire Me.
     I Have My Family Mr. []. I Really Need To Have This Job. I Hope You Understand My Part.
     God Bless And More Power!!!
     Respectfully Your’s
     Imelda R. Cruz
     JR’s Agency For Abroad
     Manager
     Quezon City Branch

3. Finally, here was a case that we heard of from one of our ladies in the Philippines –  it concerns a man she met on another site (not ours) claiming to be from UK/London.  I am including it here because I think the same kind of thing could happen anywhere.  He supposedly sent her a package containing $20,000 and the fraud was going to be to have her pay some kind of fee of hundreds of dollars to get the package (which would then be empty).  Somehow, there was even a tracking number created that appeared to be a real package in a shipping company website.  I don’t know how they did that, but I can tell you from reading this, that it is a hoax.  Here is the letter she received from him:

My Love!

Loving you is the best thing that has ever happened to me in so many years. My world has been so lonely until I found you and I have promised myself to love and cherish u as my wife.

Honey, I will come to spend time with you and you and have lots of fun too. I want us to spend our time in the classiest places in your country. What we share Honey is very special and I want you to know that I love you from the inner most part of my heart..

I think that your need is mine too. And meanwhile, i don’t want any worry in your life other than your hard working which determine to make a better and meaningful life. Just accept this token from me. It is nothing to show appreciative for the happiness which you have brought to my life since I met you, God has really blessed me with wealth but i never found true love. But I believe with you my searching for love has come to and send. Since there was no time to contact you any longer becos I never plan to live for Ireland, for your bank account details to do a bank transaction and bank transfer will take me a long process, I had no option than to sealed the money in the laptop park for your to care for yourself till I come.

Darling, I have sent the gift to you before i left for Ireland for the contract i told you, i had an urgent call, I have to move immediately .honey these are the items: HP Product Laptop, Rose Flower and xmas flower, Sunny Digital Camera, Gold necklace with ring (engagement ring), christmas card, two of my personal pictures and the sum of (£10,000) pounds sealed in the same computer pack. Darling, i want you to use £5,000 pounds  to care for yourself  and  the  passport and keep £5,000 for our funs when I come to your country

I sent it to your name and address you gave me. Name’ []Address: [], DAVAO CITY PHILS.800 Phone: (+63910[]) home and Emails ([]), from my inquiry the pack will arrive to your country and your house 4 to 6 day’s time.

Please let me know when you receive the Gift.

Below attached is a picture of the Laptop,  and pack containing the items so that you can identify it?

This is the company I sent the gift so that you can get the information and movement of the Gift

ATLAS AIR WORLDWIDE HOLDINGS Website: http://www.atlasairworld.com/holdings/

Username:         [] Password:     []       Tracking NO:     7383632

NB: Go to the company website click tracking and paste the Username and password to long in, you see your information and thereafter click below to paste the Tracking no: to see the movement of the parcel to know when the gift will arrive.

Please do this often and often. Take care of yourself till we meet

with love from Engr. Steve Mathins.

Let me conclude this sad section with the reminders:

• Do not ever send money to anyone you have never met in person
• Take your time – especially if you are new to online dating and/or new to international social networking – so that you can learn the ropes of what warning signs to avoid.  We recommend you take several months to learn about this new way to meet people, and to meet people casually, rather than jumping into anything without meeting in person.
• Insist on chatting on webcam, to be sure that the person in the pictures is the one who you are talking with, that the person typing is the one who is on the webcam, and that the person you are talking with is focused on talking with you, rather than chatting with several other people at the same time.
• Be cautious of anyone who immediately wants you to switch to using yahoo messenger rather than correspond on our site – many scammers know that our site has a reputation for immediately suspending those who ask for money and so they try to only relate their sob stories or webcam sex invitations using your yahoo messenger.  If you hear any of those kinds of stories or invitations from anyone you met on our site, write to us with the user’s number, and we will suspend them immediately.
• If you ever have anyone you met on our site ask you for money or suggest something illegal or immoral, contact us immediately using the feedback form on our site.  We are partners with you in helping to bridge the gaps between cultures, and we can only do that well when we communicate to you and you communicate to us.

We find that some people with good instincts tend to have an easy time choosing quality people to meet and sensing which to avoid, and some other people have to learn the hard way.  I hope this information we are sharing helps those of you who need to learn the hard way, to learn it a little more quickly and less painfully than some have had to learn.

We also decided to end this with a few good testimonials we received recently when we wrote to some of our members who had canceled their membership:

• I am married now to a sweet kind good lady from Gingoog city, Mindano[...] Maby the girls here are more down to earth with moral values one would hope. Often the prettier they are the more difficult they are. Guys need to be very carefull here online looking for wives. Women are often willing to say anything and do anything to get a guy. The asain exterior charm and feminity can hide a scheeming, cold, materialistic woman.  Guys can”t see it sometimes. The longer  some women are online the more desperate  they seem to be, and jaded.  My wife recently told me about a local girl who was chatting 42 guys and getting money from many of them.  Guys can be so niave and gullable. Of course I think many men are treating sweet, kindhearted, simple, girls shabbily online from what I hear. You know, how wonderfull a good filipina girl can be. They are “THE BEST” wives in the world, and best in Asia. Christian background. Similar culture to America. Adaptable and family oriented. They are mostly vulnerable, niave, and simple, and sweet, and looking for love, and I don’t think they should have to suffer the bad treatment. Some guys don’t have a clue how genuine a good Filipina can be. I hope your goodhearted  clients all find good husbands espercially the ones who have kids and need help. I have a family  there to support too. They are so poor and need my help. Gods plan I guess. You know I think a poor family there is capable of raising a better woman than many “rich” families here. No attitude, bad language, tatoos, smoking, drinking, and running around, selfish, materialistic, cold attitude, plastic ect.  To improve your site, you need better photos, and a space to allow the woman to describe herself and what she wants in a man.  A womans eyes tell her personality, and usually match what she states about herself and what she wants in a man, and in life with him , this should be clear in her own words. This can aid in helping all find a better match. Happy ending.
• Yes,I met someone from your website and we are to be married hopefully,in January.
• I canceled my membership because I found the love of my life on your website,  She is beyond any woman I ever dreamed of.  I thank God for your webiste and ask God to bless those who seek somone special on your website.  I have found my pinay.
• I cancelled on your site because I found that special someone on your site.I live in a place where born again Christians with good morals are few and far between.I briefly tried a site in the U.S. only to find the same horror stories I had heard about.When I saw your site I tried again only because you were a Christian site.I have never dated outside of my country before and now I am going to Cebu to meet in person for the first time [].With web cams and messenger the technology is amazing to learn more about a future partner.I want to thank you for a site where people with values and morals can go to meet other people…God Bless you …and p.s. we are making wedding arrangements as we speak I am confident all will go well in our meeting…Thanks,again

God Bless to all our members, especially those who are not scammers, but even them, may those who are dishonest and not humble be touched by the Spirit to leave behind those ways, and may those who do follow the commandments of the Lord be rewarded and live in His love and in the community of loving believers.

5,000 Members!

This was a letter we sent to all our members on September 1, 2009

Hi,

We’re happy to announce that we now have five thousand members!  Have you visited recently to have the chance to meet some of the new members who have joined?  There are dozens of new members joining per day.  Why not visit and take the chance to wink at your favorite new members, or send them a brief hello?  It’s free to send friendly messages (although we do ask that if you are ready to share contact details with another member, that you upgrade your membership at that time)

In celebration of this milestone, we have setup up a special membership offer.  As always, when you upgrade your membership, you are allowed to send and receive contact details in your personal messages.  What we offer as a special this week is a double time promotion.  Our most popular membership level, gold, ($59.99) is usually a 3-month membership – but if you upgrade to gold this week, it is a 6-month membership!  Likewise, our next most popular option, Silver ($29.99) is 2 months instead of 1 month.  Our other membership options (1 day, 1 week, and 1 year) are all also doubled.

So don’t hesitate – if you’ve been thinking of upgrading, this is your chance!  This special offer is valid for this week only!

I also want to follow up with you about the email I had sent a week ago regarding scammers.  We have had a few reports of scammers on the site.  We have been actively following up to immediately suspend any members who violate our terms of service, which includes asking for money.  It’s a definite no-no!  We did create a separate web page called the Scammer Hall of Fame - where you can read about our recent “petrochemical engineer” who turned out to be a Nigerian fraudster!  We’re ashamed and sorry about it, but we think it’s best to be upfront with our members.  You have to be cautious, even on a Christian site.  Use your common sense.  If you have any questions or witness strange behavior, please email me or write back using the feedback link on every page of the site.

If you’ve forgotten your password, you can retrieve it at http://christian-filipina.com/forgotpass.php and then sign in.  You can also tell your friends about the site by clicking on the “Invite a Friend” link on the home-page, or just click here.

See you at the site!

Jen,

Christian Filipina

http://christian-filipina.com

Who Can I Trust? Examples From Scam Hall of Fame

Hi,

We had hoped that in our Christian site, that we would not have the same problems with persons who sought to take advantage of other persons.  Unfortunately, in our first year at Christian Filipina, we’ve found that with the success and popularity of our website, we’ve also attracted some dishonest persons.

What are some signs that you can't trust someone you've met online? When their stories constantly change but the stories all end with a request for your money.

While we believe almost all of our members are honest, we have decided to share with our members a few examples when we have learned of scam persons who have tried to defraud other members.  We also want to pass along to you the link to Dragonladies.org This is a site where you can read more accounts of internet scamming than you want to read.  We don’t have any relation to that site or know how much of the information is accurate, but we think it can be helpful to talk with others to be wise when getting to know people from a different culture. You might also learn from more general fraud-information sites like http://fraudgallery.com/, FraudAid , and http://www.scamletters.com/ .

On our own site, I will share with you two examples from August of 2009. The first was a scam by a person claiming to be a woman employed as a petrochemical engineer living in the United States and operating her own oil drilling company.  She signed up for the site and upgraded her account to a paid membership.  She then apparently sent an email to several site members, and some of those responded offline.  The men she responded with (in the two examples we heard about) thought something was fishy – especially when the woman seemed to have a male voice on the phone – and then found it especially strange when the woman came up with an elaborate scheme to donate supplies to the Philippines, which would require a western union payment from the man in order to release two suitcases of luggage containing these supplies.  Here is the fake receipt from the supposed shipping company in Nigeria:

We have received a confirmation letter from your fiancee Miss Kodrea Smith who insured and deposited some luggage in our custody. Deposit number. GSC – O576 – PLG45, Sort/Clearance Code: GSC / 576-45/MP56 33, Deposit Certificate #: 405576.Confidentially saying we should deliver 2boxes luggage to you . We are pleased to inform you that we render diplomatic delivery services worldwide. We have agents such as; UPS international, DHL, FedEx express and many others who run a professional and quality delivery services all over the world. Our affiliate runs quality services at your disposal up to your doorsteps. The luggage would be sent by flight to the address you gave us has we have been earlier informed by your fiancee. Below are the charges for our service delivery direct to your doorstep

CHARGES                                       

INSURANCE FEE :                                   $ 510 .00
CLEARANCE :                                          $ 330 .00
SECURITY:                                               $ 210 .00
SHIPMENT &TRANSPORT FEE :               $ 520.00
                                                                ________
TOTALS :                                                 $1570.00 

Amount paid by Miss Kodrea Smith             $920.00
                                                                ......................
Total balance ro pay                                  $650.00

You are required to pay the total sum of U S D $1070.00 for services delivery to be done appropriately. Your tracking number will be sent to you so has to enable you know the movement of the luggage after payment of the above fee.

The luggage will be delivering to this recipient address given to us (confidential) Your contact address is needed where the luggages is going shipped.

METHOD OF PAYMENT:

Payment should be made through WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER agent nearest to you with the following information.
NAME : KINGSLEY NJOKU
ADDRESS : 40 ALLEN JUCTION
STATE : LAGOS
CITY : IKEJA
COUNTRY : NIGERIA
ZIPCODE : 23401
OTE:
Send the information you use for the payment to us for necessary documentation and shipment processing. Your ability to make payment as soon as possible determined the fastness of our services delivery. Thank you for consulting and using our services and be rest assured that your luggage are safe and secured for delivery. At INTER GLOBAL SHIPPING COMPANY,we serve you better with peace of mind. A trial will convince you. We hope to hear from you.

Yours Sincerely,
NJOKU KINGSLEY [Custodian Manager]

We are glad that our member sent us the scam report instead of sending the money to Nigeria!  Never send money anywhere, especially Nigeria!  Here is another example of a fraud that a user reported receiving from a member:

23/24 Cocody Avenue

Abidjan Cote divoire

Dearest One,

I know this mail will come to you as a surprise since we have not had previous
correspondence, please bear with me. I will really like to have a good bussiness relationship
with you, and I have a special reason why I decided to contact you. I am Miss Sokona Nnam 18
years old girl from Cote d Ivoire, the only daughter of Late Mr Edward Nnam I
am constrained to contact you because of the maltreatment I am receiving from
my Uncles.

They planned to take away all my late father’s treasury and properties from me
since the unexpected death of my beloved Parents.Meanwhile I wanted to escape
to anywhere i can have a good life but he hides away my international passport
and other valuable travelling documents. Luckily he did not discover where I
kept my fathers File which contains important documents.So I decided to run to
an orphanage camp where I am presenty hiding under Reform Abidjan Cote DIovoire
where my late father deposited some amount of money in a bank. I wish to
contact you personally for a long term business relationship and investment
assistance in anywhere in the world.

My late father deposited the sum of US5.5 million (Five million Five Hundred
united state dollars) in one of the leading bank with my name as the next of
kin.

However, I shall forward to you with the necessary documents on confirmation of
your acceptance to assist me for the transfer of the money to your account, and
investment of the fund. As you will help me in an investment, and I will like
to complete my studies, as I was formerly a medical student, when the crisis
started. If you are willing to help me in this kindly get back to me as soon as
possible.

I am waiting for your urgent and positive response. Please do keep this only to
your self please I plead you not to disclose it till I come over to your
country after the transfer.I am willing to offer you 20% of the total sum as
compensation of your effort and 5% for any other expence you made after a
successful transfer.

Thank you and God bless
Miss Sokona Nnam

Well, we are ashamed that it happened using our site, and we are going to try to keep our members up to date that they have to keep their common sense.  And please, as soon as you are suspicious of any member, report it immediately.  We will soon be installing a new feature to make reporting potential scam even easier, but for now you can easily use the Feedback Form link at the bottom of the page.

Remember, although these two extreme examples come from Africa, it’s also possible that a friend you meet on the site might ask for money even if she is a Filipina who is in your own denomination.  We have a strict rule against members soliciting money from other members.  Please report this behavior as soon as possible, and we will immediately suspend the violating member.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s bad teeth, dead caribou, school expenses, sick grandmother, etc, it’s simply inappropriate, and it’s a violation of our terms of service.

We do value you as members of the site.  We’re sorry that we have had to relay this information.  Remember, don’t send money to anyone you meet online who you have never met in person!

Have a great day.  Take your time to meet new friends.  When you have a chance, take a trip to meet friends in person and learn about a new culture.  Let me know if you have any comments or questions, by using the feedback link at the bottom of the page.

God bless you all.

Jen