In this scam, a person responds to your ad or posts an ad and tells you that they are very concerned about who they meet online especially after the Craigslist Murder and "because there are a lot of perverts online". They ask you to join a "free verification site" where you must give out your credit card number for some odd reason as part of the verification process but you will find the real reason they need your credit card number if you read the terms of service and fine print closely or get suckered into joining. It is always a red flag when someone asks for your credit card number when you are not buying anything or what you are "buying" is free. You will be paying a certain amount per month for an "adult verification service" that is practically worthless if you do sign up. These sites usually are named something like safedate.com, meetsafer.com, etc. You probably have just as much of a chance meeting someone who is crazy at your local bar or even a church sponsored dance but for some reason these adult verification sites are everywhere on the Internet as if the Internet is the only place that is unsafe to meet people. How can these sites "verify" your age, "verify" your marital status, or determine if you are a not sexual predator with only your credit card number and address information? You can buy a pre-paid credit card at Wal-Mart when you are under 18 and sex offenders aren't barred from obtaining a credit card from a bank. Imagine introducing yourself to some woman who says she doesn't trust you and tells you before she will even talk to you, you need to get verified to prove you are not under 18, you're not married, and you are not a sex offender. Wouldn't you be offended? If not, wouldn't you think she was a little nutty to be so paranoid? The whole idea of a verification site is ridiculous. If someone is so paranoid that they demand someone go to a verification site to prove that they are 18 years old or older, unmarried, and not a sex offender then they must be crazy or not a real person? If they are so concerned about meeting perverts on the Internet, maybe they should stick to meeting people offline? What happens if you are a member of one verification site but the person who responds to your ad requests that you join some other verification site? You would have to join thousands of verification sites since these women won't accept the verification from another site.
Everybody has heard of the traditional dating site recruitment scam right? A person places an ad or responds to an ad but tells you that they don't usually read their emails and to join a dating site that is "free" instead because they check messages on this dating site more often. This trick is so old that the ones who conduct this scam have been forced to change their tactics. There are new variations to this old scheme. In one scheme the person sends you an email but when you respond, your response bounces (is returned undeliverable) and they finally tell you that their mailbox keeps filling up with spam, an ex-boyfriend keeps deleting emails, etc and to join a dating site in order to talk to them since their email is so unreliable or they are having problems with an ex getting into their email account. These stories are hilarious. If they have an ex who keeps getting into their email account, why don't they change their password or get another account? If their mailbox keeps filling up with spam, then it's time to find another email provider! All the major email providers (Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc) have spam filters and enough storage space that even if their filter failed, your mailbox most likely won't fill up with spam unless you don't check your email often. Some email providers virtually have unlimited storage space. Another scheme is to post a picture of themselves without their face showing and tell you that they are uncomfortable showing their face because friends may recognize them (even though the photo of them is usually them half naked and friends could recognize them by tattoos or other features such as birthmarks). Why are these ladies willing to publicly share a photo of them posing in lingerie, topless, or even nude but too shy to show their face? This defies logic! There is also the reverse version of this scheme too where they will send some poor quality photo, a photo of themselves dressed modestly and to see better photos, you need to join a dating site where they have an account. In yet another scheme they will ask you to join a site to see their photo. Imagine joining a site only to find that she isn't that great looking or she isn't even a real person.
This is the newest scam that has shown up on sites like craigslist. This scam is similar to the verification or date site recruitment scams. A person (actually a bot like most of the scams) posts an ad or responds to an ad but mentions that they are uncomfortable giving out their phone number to just anyone. You need to go to a "free" site to obtain a verification code and log in to the site in order to get her phone number. The person is willing to send a photo of themselves half-naked but not comfortable sharing a phone number with just anyone because "there are a lot of perverts out there". Hilarious! If they are so concerned, why not ask the guy for his phone number and dial *67 when they call him to block their caller ID information from appearing on his phone?
I say this several times but let me say it again, the whole Internet dating thing is a scam. You join a dating site and can usually post a free profile but if you want to talk to someone, you must upgrade to a paid membership. If you do upgrade after receiving a message from someone, there is a good chance the person will lose interest in you after you commit to a recurring billing plan or may even be a fake person posting to free accounts to trick them into buying a paid membership that costs something like $9.95 a month or even more. I just don't see what is so great about Internet dating sites? Why is the Internet considered by so many people as a great place to meet people when posting an ad on Craigslist mostly gets responses from scams and dating sites are such a rip off? The money spent on a membership to a dating site can be better spent going to places to meet people offline.
