They either need it to continue communicating, to process a “fiancee form”, or to return home early from the deployment. That, of course, is what sets them up to ask for money. They then play on those vulnerabilities and very quickly profess their undying love for them with grand promises of what their life could be together once they return from deployment. They look for those who have recently been divorced, widowed, or experienced some type of traumatic event or loss. If they think there’s a possibility of a payday, they will take on any role they need to. They do not discriminate on race, gender, sexual orientation, or age. They admit to finding people in vulnerable states to target. These scammers are overseas, usually in Nigeria or Ghana, making it near impossible for them to be caught. Which means these scammers have fresh victims – and it could be your soldier. But on a daily basis, I will have pictures sent to me that I haven’t seen before. Some soldier’s pictures I have seen over and over again being used in many, many scams over the years. Those are the ones I found to be the most despicable scams of all. I’ve been sent pictures of high ranking officers (no, actually you’re not dating General Patraeus) and, sadly, even pictures of soldiers who had been killed in action. They would send me pictures of the soldier in and out of uniform, pictures of the soldier with another woman (who he claimed was his wife who had either tragically died or cheated on him and left), and/or pictures of him with his kids (who were of course with other relatives or at boarding school while he was deployed). In the beginning, the pictures were of people dressing as soldiers and it was like watching a military movie where your husband is critiquing everything wrong with the actor’s uniform.īut as social media grew more and more popular, it changed to be pictures of real soldiers. I asked them to send me any pictures they had of the soldier. How the Pictures of Soldiers Have Changed And the vast majority had already sent money by the time they reached out to me. The thing they all had in common? They were dating soldiers they met online. The emails increased in frequency and pretty soon I was receiving multiple emails and Facebook messages every day. They had sent thousands of dollars to so he would be able to return home early from deployment. I unexpectedly found myself in the middle of this world of scams more than a decade ago when I received the first email from someone telling me they were involved with a soldier who was deployed. Did you know in the past year, more than $143 million has been stolen from people involved in dating scams with people they met online?ĭid you know that many of the scammers are posing as soldiers? OUR soldiers?ĭid you know they are stealing pictures from social media profiles? Making up lies about the soldier, you as the spouse, and even your kids? How I Found Out About the Dating Scams
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