After breaking up with her boyfriend, my mom has been cruising Yahoo! Personals for a new companion. So far, most of the matches have been pretty decent, but occasionally my mom gets contacted with fake profiles that try to get her to contact them outside of the service. Instead of simply deleting the messages, she graciously lets me have a little fun with these assholes. Observe my first hilarious conversation with one of the con artists…

James, if that is his real name, opens up with this:

Wow! My name is James and I am new to this Internet thing.I saw your profile and found you intriguing… Honestly,I don’t imagine any man to see a gorgeous lady like you with such a lovely profile and still continue searching for other women because I have been looking through many partner recommendations lately and some of them even looked interesting, but Yours was one of the few that looked special! Your personality, Your interests – we might get along really well..Smile!

 I would really love to start up a conversation with you and see how it goes. Please do not hesitate to write back if you are also interested.I think its better for you to write to my private e-mail for a close contact and better acquittance.. It is : /psalm91james/ …/at/…/y/a/h/o/o/…/d/o/t/…/c/o/m/. I had to write my e-mail with style because the site automatically deletes and blocks personal contact sometimes, so you have to try and figure out the e-mail properly.

Have a Lovely Day as I look forward to hearing from you soon.. Hugs!

James.

Spotting this as a typical scam, I come back with this, incognito as my mom:

1. He lives more than two states away.
2. He has only one picture on his profile. It’s probably cut out from a magazine.
3. He mentions NO specific details about my mom in his opening message.
4. He is overly aggressive and already sure he’s found true love.
5. He asks my mom to contact him outside of the service in his first email. This is the biggest warning sign.
6. He not only does that, but he is savvy enough to disguise his email with slashes, spaces, and dots. This is so Yahoo! does not automatically flag his message. No personals service wants you to contact the person outside of their service right away!
7. His follow up is not consistent with his original message. His spelling and grammar are different and he doesn’t seem to have a good grasp of the English language.

If your man exhibits these warning sides, try asking him if he likes to wear pretty dresses. If he is okay with this, or does not even understand what you mean, you’ve definitely got a con artist on your hands. My guy seemed to think that I meant that he dressed nicely, not wore pretty dresses. If nothing else gave him away as being a foreign con artist, that was it.

I’ve heard that these con artists are usually from Nigeria or something, but I have no way of knowing whether or not that’s true. All I know is that they don’t speak English very well and they are really easy to spot if you know what to look for. My advice? DO NOT EMAIL THEM. Report them and screw around with them for cheap entertainment. I’ll leave you with another conversation I had, in which I tried not to push the envelope so fast for the sake of increased hilarity.

Daniel:

Hello Cindy
How are you doing?
I hope all is going on well with you…My Name is Daniel Smith from Wheaton, IL.I am a widowed with one Son.I am a One Woman Man with a great sense of Humor,I don’t lie or cheat on others.I am a Good Christan Man and attend church service regularly.I am new on this Internet dating..I was just browsing through the website and I read your Captivating profile that caught my attention so I decided to email ,so that we can get to know more about you,I am getting lot of Junk emails on here and I would really love to hear from you in my personal email Address.

Age or distance does not really play a Vital role in a relationship unlike,Love,Trust,Peace and Unity that we are both willing to share with each other till eternity.

You can reach me at (passionateguy950@yahoo.com)
Daniel Smith

Me:

Daniel.