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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

dating site terrors

6 replies

mudguts · 02/11/2019 15:44

hi
not sure if its advise i am asking for or issuing a warning, probably both. i have signed onto a popular dating site recently, with the view of finding a new man in my life, i am in my fifties and want someone to share everything with, feel needed and loved. anyway i started messaging this nice man, we spoke of many things and seemed to have a lot in common. after a while we swapped numbers and started to text each other every day, getting to know each other more, saying about our days, wishing each other a good morning and good evening , this went on for a couple more weeks. i felt like i knew him and was ready to meet him as i felt i had enough information to feel comfortable with this and to see how we got on face to face. we started talking of having a date, saying how we felt we would really get on, we were looking forward to it.
before our date i received a message from him to say that some stuff had gone wrong in work and he needed me to help. i wondered what i could do, he said go to the shops and buy a amazon gift card for £600 and take a picture of both sides and send it to him!!!!!!!
obviously i did not or reply to his messages again. he has gone from the site. but presumably gone on again as another complete stranger so no one will know who he is. in the very least it is very frustrating to think you have started to meet someone and spend weeks talking to them only to find not only do they not exist but they are a criminal!!
ladies be warned

OP posts:
MrsMaiselsMuff · 02/11/2019 15:48

They'll still be there but with different pictures.

Sorry it happened to you. It's not particularly common overall, but you are in their target age group.

Always worth doing a reverse image search on Google, to see if your date appears elsewhere (often as a stock photo, so basically a model/ actor).

Newchapter80 · 02/11/2019 16:07

That is a horrible experience. I think it’s worth early on having phone conversations & do a FaceTime as it’s a lot easier to pretend to be a nice person through messages and these people can easily be messaging multiple people.
I hope it hasn’t put you off finding someone x

mudguts · 02/11/2019 18:29

thanks for your reply's. luckily i was not really affected by this to much. but like myself ladies of my age quite often have not been on the dating scene for years and this is why i wanted to warn people not all is what it seems. your suggestions are very helpful.

OP posts:
littleknownfacts · 02/11/2019 20:43

I'm not personally a fan of online dating, but from friends who are on Tinder etc, the one thing they've always said was to arrange a meet-up as soon as possible. This ensures right from the get-go that you're talking to someone who at the very least resembles who they say they are. It's not 'romantic' per se, but it's efficient and most importantly, decreases the probability of things like this happening.

tuliplass · 03/11/2019 17:30

I'm sorry this has happened to you. There are fake profiles on dating sites.

I had someone I was chatting to on a dating site as me for money. It turned out it was a fake profile. I didn't send him any money but I reported him.

Summerhillsquare · 03/11/2019 18:40

Gosh that is horrible, I'm so sorry.

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