Protect yourself online

Firstly the practice of getting peoples details is called phishing. So when anyone asks for you to chat on yahoo or msn or wherever, they are looking to get your details. Please be careful with this. I don't mean to sound rude or horrible here, but there are people who are more vulnerable than others.

People who are looking for that special someone or who are a little bit lonely are bigger targets than anyone else. It doest not take long for the culprit to figure this out. They will flatter you, your profile if on a social network, your looks if you have uploaded a true photo of yourself. Anything that will make you feel special. One key give away is that they will always use models photographs. If the photo looks too perfect and the person looks too beautiful (airbrushed), be wary. (Sorry to the naturally beautiful people out there who use magazine standard photos in their profiles).

Then comes the crunch. After a short while they will tell you that they are in love with you as you are so amazing. They really do want to be with you but due to some family problem their funds are tied up and they can't access it.

Now here is where the complete con kicks in. They will offer to send you a moneygram/cheque/check/draft to the value of, for example $10,000.00, and if you could cash this, and send them back $6,000.00 via western union you can keep the balance and they will use the cash to get a flight to you.

To digress for one moment, this also occurs when they want to get something from an auction site like ebay, ebid, but they also go through Craigslist, gumtree etc; so pay attention to that too. Especially if you are looking for something special like a wedding dress and they contact you after the sale.

These are fake, but extremely good fakes and a lot of banks will credit this amount to your account before funds have cleared. You think you have this cash in the bank, send the $6,000.00 via Western Union. Eventually the bank will realize for forgery for what it is, and YOU are the one who is responsible for drawing on funds that you technically did not have to draw on, despite the bank crediting your account. You are also legally responsible for this.

Always remember that in a lot of cases this is not a personal attack, it's more to do with casting a line and see what bites (see Phishing). It is completely random, and in a lot of cases the culprit is sitting in an internet cafe in Nigeria (I am not slagging off a complete nation, but statistics prove that quiet a lot of these scam come from Nigeria, but they are worldwide too). When they get a bite they call the victim a MUGU! I think this means something like stupid rich person, especially as they will try to fleece you for everything they can.

Most of all, never, never, never (I cannot stress this enough) give your personal details to anyone you meet on a social network or dating site. If you do meet someone from a dating site, tell someone where you are going and what you are doing. Protect yourself from madmen, con artists and scammers at all times.