Keith Anderson - Romance Scammer

I knew the minute I saw the email from this dude, or whatever that it was a scam, have women gone back to the stone ages of being stupid to get a man due to the internet?????

benblesed,

I am glad you realized quickly that this is a scammer. However, there is no value in suggesting that someone has to be stupid to fall for a scammer. Very intelligent people have fallen for scams and scammers, and continue to do so--if the circumstances are right, anyone can be a victim.

For example,

-If English is not your first language, you may not notice the mistakes.
-If English is your first language, and the scammer is claiming to be from a non-English speaking country (for example Germany), you may attribute his mistakes to his (fictional) background.
-If you are recently divorced/widowed/coming out of a bad relationship, you may be lonely and vulnerable.
-If you have never dealt with scammers or scams, it may simply be incomprehensible that someone would tell so many lies and play so much with your emotions to make a few bucks.
-If you have never dated online before, you may simply believe that this is fairly normal, and this person is a man who is ready to settle down NOW--especially when your dating account is flooded with replies from scammers, all highly romantic and anxious to settle. Rather than causing you to suspect a scam, the other responses may help to reinforce the idea that this one is normal and real.
-If you have never traveled, you may not know enough to question the claims about money, travel laws, etc. that these scammers make.
-If you are not American and know nothing about the American military, you might accept the explanations a romance scammer gives you, especially if they are reinforced by "another" person at a different address.
-If you are very romantic yourself, you may not think that the scammer's romantic claims are excessive.
-Even if you are suspicious, the scammer is studying you while he is scamming. He will likely learn enough about you to provide explanations that may seem plausible to you. And if you try to check his story, but don't know what to searc or search the wrong things (for example, if he claims to be in UK, and you decide to check the 44-70 number, it will appear to be a UK number--supporting the scammer's story) you may actually be more convinced than ever.
-If you tend to take people at face value, it may not occur to you that this person is not who he pretends to be.

This guy just sent me a message on MySpace. I have reported him, but thought I'd share.


Hello,
How r u doing? I hope u r doing fine,I just went through your profile and It seems to me, you are very nice, sincere, romantic and cheerful person.And I hope we will become good and close friends, and even more... Who knows...
I believe that people can often meet come across Love in their life but they can be so blind or preoccupied with other problem or things that they think are much more important that they pass by this great, light feeling and when they realize that it was exactly Love, it can be too late to let it enlighten their mind, heart and soul. Unfortunately it deals with the human nature to have regrets only when you loose something?..
So let the wonderful spirit of LOVE warm up your heart and your soul among all this city noise and fuss, among all these daily problems and everyday troubles! I'm waiting for your letter...
Please send me an email directly to ([email protected]) to tell me more about yourself. I will be waiting and hoping to hear from you, as soon as i get an email from you, i shall forward you my pictures, i shall be looking forward to receiving your email, take good care of yourself.I will really appreciate it if you could response back to my personal email so that i could forward my pics to you cos am having some problems in uploading my pics here.God bless you
My best regards,
David.
P.S. I REALLY DONT GET ON THIS SITE MUCH SO PLEASE RESPOND BACK TO ME THROUGH MY PRIVATE MAIL ADDRESS.

I hate to admit it, but I started talking to "Jeff Loudin" back in April. I thought he was from Ohio doing business in Africa. It took about a week for him to ask for the first money and since I had no idea about these sort of things, I sent it. He eventually took me for just over $2700. Reading some of these messages from "Keith Anderson", they both used many of the exact phrases. It was like I was reading letters from Jeff. It makes me sick in the pit of my stomach that I fell for this. I guess that being alone too long will make even the most normally smart person do really stupid things.