[sally]

Ok Phil it is. The whole thing is a bit of a minefield really but no doubt I shall learn as I go. I haven't even got to the charging stage and I'm not looking forward to that nightmare.

[awebapart]

From what I can remember of a Tonight documentary about this whole Nigerian internet dating scam, they don't say they are from Nigeria. They fake a profile of some high paid good looking businessman, a good catch, from say America, using a photo of some male model they nick from the internet, they then proceed to con (con = get the confidence of) a dating site member over a series of weeks/months of internet romancing. Then they say they are going on a business or charity trip to Africa, and it is during the fake 'trip' that they say they have been mugged, they've lost everything, and can you wire some money to them in Nigeria via a Western Union transfer. That's just one of the scams there are others too.

As Phil says, IP addresses can be anonymised (either via proxies or other software), so that alone is not a solution, although it might filter out some of the less determined ones.

Perhaps another approach is to write on your site about the typical dating scams to make your members fully aware of the issues, perhaps the scammers will then move on to other dating sites whose members are less educated in these issues and therefore an easier target.

[sally]

I do have a whole section in the members forum about how to spot them and I am hoping they will get the message soon that there are easier targets, as I kick them off pretty quickly but would be better if I could get them before they get registered and ip addresses is the only sure way I know of at the moment.

[awebapart]

Originally Posted by sally

I do have a whole section in the members forum about how to spot them and I am hoping they will get the message soon that there are easier targets

If this content is in the members only forum, then the scammers wont see this - and wont realise that you and your members are on the case - until after they register. If you make this information publicly availably on your site it should act as a better deterrent, and it would have the added benefit of adding content to your site for SEO purposes, perhaps attracting more visitors from the search engines.

It would be interesting to find out how other dating sites tackle this issue, perhaps via a search. The safe dating site at the top of this search has some interesting data on scammers from different countries. It even talks about the 'How to catch a love rat' Tonight documentary I mentioned. Unfortunately it then goes on to say that you can view clips from this documentary on the itv website, and that the itv website clips only work if you are viewing in the UK, and if you want to view from outside the UK the site then provides a link to an IP faking website where you can fake your IP address to view the clip! Talk about handing IP anonymising scamming tips to potential scammers on a plate.

[sally]

This is one of the problems Paul, the more information you provide on how you suss they are scammers the more quickly they learn and find alternatives.

Thanks for the info though, I will have a good read now.

[CPLTD]

It's so cool to see forum members coming together and helping each other like this, Many thanks to you all , what a community