One "tell" that I have noticed.

Hello.

I just joined the site and I am not sure if this has been discussed before.

For a few years, I had an account on Yahoo! Personals (note: Yahoo! Personals was recently shut down by Yahoo!) Of course, the site was just flooded with scammers. I never responded to any and, unfortunately, I did not write down any of the email addresses.

One common thread that I noticed that the scammers had was that they listed their race as "Native American". At first I thought that it was an error but then, I realized that the scammers have no idea what Native American means. If I only had a nickle for every time I saw a personal ad with a photo of an attractive, blonde haired, slavic looking woman whose had "Native American" listed as her race.

Not that actual Native Americans don't use personals sites but, chances are, if you get a response on a personals site, and the person lists their race as "Native American", you are dealing with a scammer.

Welcome Vinny,

You do see that type of mistake quite a bit, not just with Native American, but with other races/nationalities. Many (not all) scammers simply don't know the difference between races (and we do our best not to teach them). We see the same thing with age, too--another clear sign is when the photo used is clearly 10 or more years off the scammer's claimed age.

However, just to clarify--Native American as a race alone is not reason to assume scammer. I live in the US myself, and I do have friends of Native American Ancestry here, some of whom might use a dating site. Like many other scammer signs, it needs to be taken in context. Native American alone may or may not be a scammer. Native American with a picture that clearly does not correspond is a major sign of a scammer.

Native American alone may or may not be a scammer.

I concur.

However, the percentage of scam personal ads I've seen with "Native American" listed as the race far exceeds the Native American percentage of the population. Like I said, it is just something that jumped out at me over time. If you see "Native American" listed on a personal ad with poor grammar and no picture (or a picture that doesn't seem to match), you are dealing with a scammer.