These are an ongoing problem. That pretty 'Asian' lady you met on a dating site, may actually be a West African male, living in China!
Yes, West African scammers pretend to be anyone, anywhere in the world, and often claim to be Asian or mixed ladies, but these scams are a bit different.
Most of these specific scams come from the Guangdong province of China, primarily Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. The 'lady' will claim to be in these cities, and if you know how to check the email headers for an IP, you'll see the emails came from the appropriate city.
The problem is, you are not in contact with the cute lady in the pictures they use and send, but a West African male, trying to scam you!
An additionaly wrinkle is, the scammers have asian female 'helpers' who will make or take phone calls from victims. The lady you talk to is not the lady in the pictures.
The fake 'lady' is usually Chinese, or Filipina, working at some menial or low level job.
(Clerk, Maid, Nanny, etc)
See this section at Dragonladies.org for examples of this scam
She will use various excuses for not using a webcam.
'The family I work for is strict. They do not allow me to use webcam'
'I work long hours. I do not have time to go to internet cafe to use a webcam'
'My webcam is broken'
'It is not safe to go out to the internet cafe'
'I can only chat from work, and we have no cam here. The internet cafe is in a bad area. I'm afraid to go there.'
Another element of this specific scam is lady always claims the boss, or employers are supportive of her finding a 'western' man on the internet, which somewhat clashes with them being strict or protective.
The boss or employer is also used as a means to introduce the method of collecting the scam money.
'My boss is a business man and world traveler. He suggests we use this agency to buy my visa and ticket to meet you'
This brings us to the mode of extracting money from the victim...these are usually 'visa and travel' scams. The fake lady will profess love very quickly, and want to travel to meet the man where he lives, but is short of funds for the visa, and plane ticket.
The victim will offer to help, or will be urged to help. He will be directed to a travel or visa agency site, that is fake, and set up by the scammers. He'll be asked to pay thousands of dollars for the visa, and plane ticket for the lady.
Of course, no real lady shows up at his local airport....and the money is gone.
See this entry for more information on these fake agencies
How can you avoid these scams?
Never send money, or pay for services for somebody you only know from the internet, and phone calls.
There's no valid excuse for anybody using the internet to find a mate to not show a live face on cam, and more than once or occasiaonlly.
Research the real methods for a single lady in China, to come to your country! They can't go to an 'agency', pay a fee, and be on a plane in a few days or weeks!
Dragonladies.org can help you with internet romance scams from Asia.
Most dating sites do little to keep scammers out, whether they charge fees, or not.
