Military men met on dating sites

I am trying to find out if there are people using dating sites to scam women saying they are military men stationed in afghanastan? I am asking this because I was aproached by a man on okcupid.com and he says he lives in California but he is stationed over there with the military. He says the only way we can talk on the phone is if I write to his commander and he give me a email address of [email protected]. He says I have to write to them and ask them if I can have him contact me on my cell phone. He said there might be a fee I would have to pay before we could talk and this just does not sound right to me so I figured I would ask you all about it! He says His name is Smith Ingram. I hope you all can help me out! Thanks

It's a scam. Soldiers don't need you to pay fees for them to talk, an email address of someone in the army would end in .mil, not .com, and there are a lot more scammers pretending to be soldiers than real soldiers who have time to spend on dating sites.

This is an extremely common scam these days. There are literally thousands of fake profiles, created by African scammers, that use photos of real soldiers stolen from the internet.

A scammer will create a new profile, and will then approach several women with the same scripted approach. Unfortunately, the scammers have managed to get hundreds of thousands of dollars (the number is probably well into the millions to tell the truth) from innocent women this way. While they have gotten plenty of money from American women, they have gotten even more money from women living in other countries who have no knowledge of how the US military works, and nobody to ask.

You can help others to avoid being scammed by posting the name and email address the scammer used, and the emails he sent you, as he will reuse those same emails on dozens of other potential victims, often with multiple names and sets of photos as well.

It is important to understand a few things about the military when you are dating online.
-You would never request anything for a soldier. This includes phone, leave, benefits, and everything else. Even a wife cannot request these things for her husband. The US military is a closed system, and soldiers must request everything for themselves.
-Leave is earned. If he is eligible (he gets around 2 weeks a year) the soldier pays nothing. If he is not eligible, he can't get it. If he claims he is coming to see you for months, he is a scammer, not a soldier.
-Soldiers also have access to their money, and they do receive pay while stationed overseas.
-Single dads who are soldiers cannot just leave their child with a nanny or babysitter--they have written care plans that are reviewed by their superiors. These plans include provisions for dealing with emergencies. This means that when a "soldier" has a crisis with his child and needs you to send money to fix it, you can be sure he is a scammer, not a soldier.

Welcome to the forums Big Momma 73. I am sending you a Private Message. Please read it.

I met a man on badoo.com June 18, 2013...His name is Aaron Anderson he's with the 18th Batallion Combat and they are in Syria on a peace keeping mission...He is from Houston, TX and he will be back in November of this year and he has a daughter he got a Nanny for her while hes overseas fighting for our country.

http://www.eur.army.mil/21tsc/16sb/18CSSB/

merged - CW

I've met a US Army Sergeant by the name of Aaron Anderson James, He's with the 18th Batallion Combat in Syria on a peace keeping mission? They'll be back in the United States in November of this year!! He and I are also friends on facebook.

I'm sorry to be harsh here, but it appears to be very necessary.

You are NOT dating a US Army soldier. You ARE in contact with an African romance scammer who is using stolen photos of a real American soldier he has never met. His entire goal is to form a fake relationship in order to steal your money.

I know this for certain, even without any other information, because:
The 18th Batallion is NOT in Syria.
Soldiers CANNOT leave their children with nannies while they are deployed, EVER.

Your "soldier" will never come to visit you because he does not exist.

The only troops in Syria are Syrian troops. There are no US troops, UK troops or any other troops in Syria apart from those of Syrian nationality. There is no peace keeping mission in Syria at all as the country is in the middle of a full scale civil war.

The scammer you're talking is not only an idiot but he also doesn't read the newspapers otherwise he'd know these facts. It is also an offence for troops to publicise details of the deployment of their units over the internet. It would also be rather bizarre to put a Combat unit in the field on a peace keeping mission.

Scammers usually make an effort to say something sensible but this scammer's story is just plain ridiculous. He isn't even a very good scammer.