by Dotti
Fri Dec 20, 2013 10:59 pm
First, I know it's tough, but try not to stress too much about it.
Just to be clear: He IS a scammer. He is NOT a soldier. He is almost certainly a younger African man with no connection to the soldier in any photos he sent. He also knows nothing about the real US military except what he copies from the internet.
The good news is that these scammers are typically in Africa or Malaysia, where there is a large number of Nigerian scammers. They are not going to come anywhere near you. If all they have is a drivers license, they can't do a whole lot of real harm. He doesn't have enough for true identity theft. That's not to say that they can't use your name and that license scam in a future scam, but a small amount of basic research will be all it takes to establish that you are not involved. If you want to play it extremely safe, you can always put a fraud alert on your credit file.
As far as other things to be aware of: unfortunately, social sites of all kinds are just loaded with scammers. Here are some things to keep in mind:
-The VAST majority of dating site profiles for "deployed soldiers" are fakes created by scammers. In reality, I've never encountered a real one. Real deployed soldiers have far too many things to worry about than meeting strangers on dating sites. They also don't have hours upon hours to chat.
-If you are dealing with a real soldier, you will have NO involvement with the military. If you are not legally married to him, you are not entitled to any benefits.
-Soldiers have to request leave for themselves. Nobody else can request it, not even a wife. They have a chain of command and they must follow it. The same is true of deployment. You can't request that a soldier be stationed in a particular place, and you can't buy a specific deployment. There is NO cost to fly home--the military covers it. If loved ones could request or buy these things on behalf of soldiers, there would be no troops overseas, because their families would just pay the money to keep them home!
-The military sees an online girlfriend as the equivalent of a pen pal. She has no legal connection to the soldier or the military, and they would not contact her for any reason, or give her any information regarding the soldier that is not available to the general public.
-Any person who approaches on a dating site and starts declaring love from the start is most likely a scammer.
-Watch the English, especially if he is supposed to be educated.
- Watch for people who claim to be near you, but then are conveniently traveling, or who announce a trip right after you meet.
