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Janet N. Cook, a church secretary in Virginia, had been a widow for a decade when she joined an Internet dating site and was quickly overcome by a rush of emails, phone calls and plans for a face-to-face visit. "I'm not stupid, but I was totally naïve," says Cook, now 76, who was swept off her feet by a man who called himself Kelvin Wells and described himself as a middle-aged German businessman looking for someone "confident" and "outspoken" to travel with him to places like Italy, his "dream destination." But very soon he began describing various troubles, including being hospitalized in Ghana, where he had gone on business, and asked Cook to bail him out. In all, she sent him nearly $300,000, as he apparently followed a well-honed script that online criminals use to bilk members of dating sites out of tens of millions of dollars a year.
The New York Times reports that internet scammers are targeting women in their 50s and 60s, often retired and living alone, who say that the email and phone wooing forms a bond that may not be physical but that is intense and enveloping. Between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2014, nearly 6,000 people registered complaints of such confidence fraud with losses of $82.3 million, according to the federal Internet Crime Complaint Center.
Older people are ideal targets because they often have accumulated savings over a lifetime, own their homes and are susceptible to being deceived by someone intent on fraud. The digital version of the romance con is now sufficiently widespread that AARP's Fraud Watch Network has urged online dating sites to institute more safeguards to protect against such fraud. The AARP network recommends that dating site members use Google's "search by image" to see if the suitor's picture appears on other sites with different names. If an email from "a potential suitor seems suspicious, cut and paste it into Google and see if the words pop up on any romance scam sites," the network advised. The website romancescams.org lists red flags to look for to identify such predators, who urgently appeal to victims for money to cover financial setbacks like unexpected fines, money lost to robbery or unpaid wages.
Most victims say they are embarrassed to admit what happened and they fear that revealing it will bring derision from their family and friends, who will question their judgment and even their ability to handle their own financial affairs."It makes me sound so stupid, but he would be calling me in the evening and at night. It felt so real. We had plans to go to the Bahamas and to Bermuda together," says Louise Brown. "When I found out it was a scam, I felt so betrayed. I kept it secret from my family for two years, but it's an awful thing to carry around. But later I sent him a message and said I forgave him."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 20 2015, @08:39AM
Indeed, I sometimes think about all the packages I've installed from my distro's package repository, trusting that if it's in the repository, it should not be malicious. Who knows if someone didn't sneak some evil code into one of the many packages? After all, it could even be that one of those responsible for the repository is doing some underhanded job. If you really wanted to be sure, you'd have to compile everything yourself, and first inspect the source of every single package you install. But who has time for that?
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Monday July 20 2015, @11:03AM
Exactly. There's a lot of trust involved in social relations and also in getting software from the internet.
Lucky enough for me, for some reason delivering malware via driveby downloads is currently easier than corrupting the software repositories where I get my updates from.
And exactly the same is true for scammers: luckily for me, they're targetting other people. If they were targetting me, I'd probably weed out one or two, but I'm pretty sure eventually one would get through.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 20 2015, @07:36PM
Driveby downloads are a much more viable course of action and you don't have to share your source code that way. The minute malware makers start making their software open source, is the hour we get a lot better malware detection.
Scammers are always trying to get your information, so they can overcharge you for something, or commit outright fraud. I have had some experience with a certain persistent caller every few months trying to sell us overpriced ink / toner cartridges. They usually have some cookie cutter spiel that usually makes it past the front line and the call inevitably ends up being forwarded to me. The best line I have found that usually ends up with them hanging up immediately is this. "What company are you with?" They would also be committing fraud, if they claimed to be from a company they aren't. Most scammers don't want to be on the hook for fraud, though.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"