How to tell if that Match.com account is fake. (From Personal Experience)

Julia on Match.com : https://flic.kr/p/c3Uio

On Average — 1 in 10 is fake!

I joined Match.com (affiliate link) and signup with the three month membership.  I must say it was nothing I was expecting. Me and this lady online started talking on their in under a day we switched to the Google Hangouts and have been chatting for the past week at least on and off.   I’ve been loving the talks, and we have talked about everything from sex to secrets in dating!  I’ve been up front about almost everything that wasn’t to personal and we are finally going to meet in the next few weeks.  Even though Venturebeat talks about one in ten profiles are scams.   I do not like scams or for that matter and I try to avoid them at all costs!

How to defend against Scammers!

There are ways to find out if that profile or that picture is possibly a scammer.    I will say that even these techniques are not a 100% guarantee and you will have to ultimately make your own decision on if that person is actually real or fake.   If you take my advice you’ll be far more likely to find the real account and keep yourself from getting hurt.  Although again, it isn’t going to be 100% perfect, you could still find those scammers who are more diligent in their scams.   

Details are everything!

If you find a match on Match.com (affiliate link), Zoosk, eharmony, or OkCupid.   You will need to do several things before you email them or chat with them.  

• Search for their Pictures  — Download or find the link to their picture on the dating site and do a reverse picture search on sites like Tineye.com, Bing, or Google.  These are the three you should start first and try other sites that have similar abilities.  
• Profile search — Copy the whole text of the profile and search Google and Bing and see if you find other profiles with the same text in either whole parts or over 50% of the same text.   Even though it could happen it is unlikely that the profiles would use the same exact wording and styles.
• Self Employment — if the profile says they are self employed then that is another mark on the profile and you will have to be careful.   It doesnt’ mean that it should be disqualified all together but it should make you keep on the look out for them asking for money.   

Most of the time, these are the red sirens in the mind that should go off if you do come across a profile that is questionable.   If you find two or more of these that are on other sites or same site with different name and profile.   You can bet that it could very well be a dating scammer.   Only way to know for sure is time.

The Chat sessions!

If by chance you found someone who doesn’t have any of these 3 things going on with their profile.   You should start talking to them but you need to do these steps until you finally meet!

• Picture exchanges — if they send you new pictures you have never seen before, you should go back and find the most likely photos that might be used on other and see if those pictures come back with hits to other sites.   It not be as bad as you think but it should be kept a constantly making sure the person is real.
• No money — Tell the person after you get to know them your stance on not giving money to them or anyone else until you have physically met them.   Even then you should be cautious after the first meeting because they could very well be scammers.   Again only time will tell.   If you throw out this to the scammer, they will stop talking to you because they know they are wasting their time on you.   It is a good way to weed out the fakes accounts from the real ones.  The ones that are really will understand not try to get any money from you.
• Be Honest — Be honest with yourself and them about your goals and what you are wanting from the relationship can help determine if they are truly meant for you or some other person.   If you try to hide these things, then you will not succeed in finding that perfect match.

If you follow these simple steps, your less likely to be scammed and thus you are will have a much enjoyable eperience in your dating endeavor.   Nothing is set in stone with these steps but I am sure these will help you in finding your perfect mate for life and help you avoid those scammers!

Why I do not click "Here" in emails and why you should to!!

 

tools4technow.com

That isn’t going to happen!!

It isn’t like I do not know what might happen, but before I even did anything I check out the link by looking up the domain which if you want to check out what I see you will see the there isn’t really a main site link at the top of the Google search.   Odd isn’t it, well I then looked at the urls that was after the domain name and I found:>

/-wqs-/generallaborer.com/Free/GetStarted.asp?aff=F7288B41-CC5D-4D08-B06C-FB03EF98DEFB

As you can see it looks to be a redirect to “generallaborer.com” with an Affiliate link that means someone gets paid for links that use that link.   You can tell that someone gets paid by the “AFF=”.   I also have my own affiliate links but you will know when I put a link on my site that pays me money when you use my link to buy stuff with.

Spam

It appears to be a scam or a way someone makes money when you sign up with a link to that site.   I do know know what actually happens because I did not click on those links.   I can only assume that it was a link spam and not a scam but I will never truly know and I am not really worried about that type of help from people who try to make money off you without telling you.   

You rarely know what the links really go to from emails.   They can be masked or hidden and you could even get a virus on your computer as easily as you can get one just surfing the net.   It could also make you think your are logging into a site you visit often but in truth you are giving your password away to someone who will use it for all sorts of purposes.   These are the main I will never click on links without some looking up of the domain in question.   You should never click links that your are not expecting or from people who you do not know!   Each one of these should be a first step to prevent something terrible from happening to you or your computer.

Yet Another Android Scarevertising!

Androidsecurityfree.org

These are on the Rise!

I’ve seen more and more of this in the last few week.   One blogger, on barfooin.net talked about TunIn their advertising practices.  This one however came up with from Defrag+ and the advertising was simple yet to some very scary “Virust Detected! Remove Now!” and you saw a little animated bar like it was actually doing something.   This form of advertising should not be allowed and you should not install it!

The story behind installing this app, was a very simple one.   My Acer tablet was starting to get unresponsive and I wanted to see if the internal memory needed to be cleared and re-arranged.  I guess I could of bought the 10$ version but if they are going to allow this type of advertising on their app then I guess it doesn’t really do anything else. 

Third Party Advertising!

I should say this isn’t a big problem right now but I can see that if you got did your research to find me and you probably did.   You will see that there isn’t any real information out their about this and others like androidantivirusfree(dot)org which is one of the few that I’ve actually documented and talked about in the past! 

I don’t know which advertiser networks are allowing this sort of thing but I am sure sooner or later someone will start giving this people a mess of problems and they will see that they need to fix the problem.  

Push Notifications problems!

It definitely seems that this little app wants to advertise every chance it gets and it kind of seems the publisher is money hungry.   So I am unsure how trust worthy this app is and how much I want to keep it on my android device.   No wonder he is charging 10$ for the pro version of this app.   Oh well, I am going to delete this app and figure out how to fix the problem with out paying for apps like this one and others.   I am sure there is a simple solution to the problem but first I will go through and remove some of the apps that I don’t use anymore for starters and see where that leads me!

Why Unsolicited links should be avoided!

You've been selected from the region to take part in our annual visitor survey. This will only take 30 seconds of your time and will enhance user experience. Upon completion you will have the opportunity to get a iPad 3, a MacBook Air, or a $1000 Walmart Card.Unsolicited Links!

Got them email from an account who is a known Scammer and the email message was:

marciaburn1@hotmail.com sent you a private message. 

As you can see the site the links have been removed.  I thought I would share with you some of the domains that it went to:

http://questionclickanswer.net/

http://question-answer-website.com/

and I suspect "http://webwordquiz.net" also

I'm sure there are more, but the moral of the story is that most of these sites are just scam.  How can you get that for free.   Not going to happen in my book, nothing ever comes free.   I then did research on those two domains and viewed the source of those two domains and they had a hidden pixel with a domain called (bluecava.com) Thanks to Web of Trust, I now know that this domain has been blacklisted!

What is a Hidden Pixel?

A pixel is a trick done by most advertisers who want to track where you've been.  It basically tells the browsers to requests a invisible image that you don't see on you computer and thus every time you get that image you IP is logged.   It isn't something that is good or bad, it is something that companies have done from the beginning of the internet.   It just helps me find out more about the spammer because that domain has been used for so long that I know more about it than I probably would of liked to of known.

Exploitable Links!

Now I'm sure this could of easily been an exploited link and thus you really shouldn't click links unless you are want to ask for trouble. If you ever get something that you don't know about you should let that person know and verify with them that way you know if it should be trusted.  Not all emailed links are to be trust but that doesn't mean you can't at least protect yourself.  You really should have an Antivirusu software [Affiliate Link] on you system.  If your want are looking for recommendations, you should check out my Antivirus suggestion page!

Paul Sylvester

Have you Tried my Toolbar?

How not to be scammed by online dating sites!

 

It isn't always Simpler!

I'm not saying that it is impossible to find out for sure but there will always be times when you are going to ask yourself "Is this person for real or are they fake?" I'm here to at least try to show you how you can tell and how you can verify they are who they are.  I will show you some great tips and tricks on how you can do just that!  

How was it received?

Having seen so much trouble with getting scammed, I thought we should at least look at how it is received and try to show you some great techniques to know if they are really who they are saying they are, or if they are just trying to get money from you.  These are what I call the Nigerian Dating Scams but some call them also the Russian Dating scams, which to me are the same!

• Check the Headers -- There is an example but your main questions is how do I do that?  The Mxtoolbox blog has a great tutorial on how to do that!
• Are they from Nigeria? -- Anytime you get an email with an Nigeria then they are most likely a Nigerian Scam but I've seen this in many  ways but recently I've heard from friends who were scammed while they were trying to find romance on dating sites.
• Check the "X-Originating-IP:" or "Recieved: by" fields in headers! -- Finding the IP of the sender can be first step determining if they are legit or fake emails.  You can find out about an IP by going to Whois.net and putting in all the IP's that you find and seeing where that IP is in the world.
• Syntax and Grammar -- Having seen this in emails past, some scammers seem to need translation services and thus the grammar and syntax on emails are off for your location.  This is a great indicator that there is something wrong.  You should always have a red flag go off in your mind when you see those types of emails.
• Good looking females or Males -- Depending on who you are trying to meet on an online dating service, then you will receive hits with these good looking people to try to show you how lucky you were to be found.  This is another way they lure you into sending them money.  (See an Example up at top)

Identify some Keywords!

Just because you got an email, doesn't mean that you can't read between the lines.  Whenever I get emails about some of the stuff like this you have to read the emails carefully.  Some of the most common word to look for are:

• Relocate -- If the email promises talks about relocations, then you should be weary of the person.  
• You've Won -- This is also a great way to know that you may be scammed, because how were you entered in the contest in the first place.
• Someone is hurt -- compassion is something that the scammers, although you never know who they will saying is hurt you can expect them to want you to send money.  You should never send money to anyone to anywhere because you don't know what they will do with the money once they received it!

I could go on and on about all the scams that are being used in emails but if I do that you'd be bored to tears.  So I am just trying to help you recognize how and what to look for when you are dealing with email correspondence with another person.  One thing I always remember is "Never assume the person is real, until you can verify their identity".  

Paul Sylvester

Free Ipad scams sent through text messages!

Another Spam Text message!

Just Like the Wal-mart text spam, I thought I would at least make people aware of this new spam text message!

Phone Numbers: 

(901)833-6335

Attn: You have been selected to receive a FREE iPad - go to www.freeipad.com.winr.biz/ and enter promo code: "IWON" to claim your iPad. HURRY!

So I used my free Tool to find out who the provider is and they say that it should be Cingular Wireless (AT&T).  It is looking like AT&T is having problems right now because they seem to be constantly coming from numbers that are on the AT&T network.  

You can report this text by forwarding it to abuse@att.com.   I also tell them what number it comes from.   I am hoping this is making the spammers look somewhere else because it is looking like new numbers each time!