Flirtbox.net / yourbuddy24.com

I joined http://www.flirtbox.net on Sunday, 22nd December since it was a free chat/dating site under the username deckomac414. I wasn't a member for very long when I received an email from a member called fakesman21. I checked her profile, it was blank. Her email had lots of strange accented characters, and she said she was in my area and would like to get to know me better and maybe meet for coffee. However, I was advised that if I wanted to continue the chat, I should view her full profile (MiraBlue) on flirt2014. This led me onto yourbuddy24.com. I created my profile (deckomac414) and she had a photograph (in sepia) posted on the website as part of her profile. Although aged 24, she looks about 17. We chatted for a while on yourbuddy24.com, while I had 50 coins in credit. Each message to her cost 10 coins, so I very quickly ran out of credit.

Here is the full text of our chat while I had my 50 coins credit…

deckomac414 [2013-12-22 16:58:23]: Hi Mira, its deckomac414. How are you? --> down to 40 coins
MiraBlue [2013-12-22 17:10:22]: hello, how are you? i am good thanks, what are you looking for hun?

deckomac414 [2013-12-22 17:33:10]: Hi, I'm fine thanks. I'm looking for fun, friendship and maybe more. And getting to know each other along the way --> down to 30 coins

MiraBlue [2013-12-22 17:36:34]: hey, good to see a reply from you darling, so tell me a bit about you? are you single? married?

deckomac414 [2013-12-22 17:37:33]: I'm single, honey. No girlfriend. What about you? --> down to 20 coins

MiraBlue [2013-12-22 17:39:17]: yeah i am single too, no girlfriends too... lol… --> Strange comment.

deckomac414 [2013-12-22 17:41:25]: Your picture looks very nice So, what are you planning for Christmas? --> down to 10 coins

MiraBlue [2013-12-22 17:44:53]: well i do plan on vising some family, what about you luv?

deckomac414 [2013-12-22 17:48:54]: Mine will be a quiet Christmas with family too. I'm out of credit on this chat thing , love talking to you, so feel free to mail me… --> No coins. Could not continue chat.

--- The messages from her continued ---

MiraBlue [2013-12-22 17:50:11]: so where do I mail you too darling?

MiraBlue [2013-12-22 18:21:43]: well looks like you aren't here are you?

MiraBlue [2013-12-22 19:40:43]: how long will you make me wait for you dalirng?

MiraBlue [2013-12-22 22:41:38]: hey are you not coming back online? though you wanted to get to know each other darling.

MiraBlue [2013-12-23 05:32:35]: Hello are you free to chat today?

MiraBlue [2013-12-23 18:05:37]: hey if you are not doing anything for Christmas why don't we meet up and maybe we can spend some time together eh?

----

She is also on a German language website - www.flirt48.net with the exact same picture and a very similar profile. I was able to message her on that site, but seemingly she did not pick up my messages there. Also, it only cost 5 coins to chat as opposed to 10 on yourbuddy24.com (but still only enough for 5 messages).

I feel so stupid for falling for this scam - when she wrote to me on Flirtbox, I should have seen from her badly worded email that it was a scam - plus a genuine person would not have redirected me to a pay site.

Normally, I'm more streetwise, but I guess that's what Christmas can do to some people. I was able to close my Flirtbox account, but not yourbuddy24 or flirt48.net - which look remarkably similar.

It is also unusual to request a meeting so quickly when we know nothing about each other. This has Scam written large, and I feel it could take a very dangerous turn - I am extremely worried at what I have got myself into, and I cannot bring it to an end.

Thanks for reading this post. Any help/advice would be welcome.

Hi irl-yulevictim: welcome to scamwarners. It doesn't look like you got very far with this scammer, so don't be too upset with yourself. Sometimes they reveal themselves slowly and it takes some time to catch on. I can't tell how much money you lost and if you have potential to lose more. I would think you can report the profile to the websites you are on so you lose nothing further.
Please make sure you don't continue contact with this person. I will tell you my scammer even had a cell phone set up with a phone number for my area, so the scammers don't always appear to be far away from you. There is a wide variety and that is how they get us- if it doesn't look similar to what we have seen before, it is more trusting.
Let us know if there is anything else we can do to help you. You caught on so be proud of yourself for doing that. And you came here to make sure this person is known, which helps others not get scammed too.

Thank you for your reply. This experience will teach me to be more careful in future.

I am still being bombarded with messages from MiraBlue on yourbuddy24.com. I read and delete them - even if I wanted to make contact with her - which I don't - I can't because I have to buy coins. I have no intentions of doing that because I do not like the look of the site.

On numerous occasions, I tried to delete my account there, and despite following everything to the letter, my profile still exists and this scammer is still able to contact me.

Can anything be done to shut down this website - and its German "cousin" (flirt48.net)?

You may have to contact the support people at the website directly to report the person and have your account deleted. Let them know you are getting unwanted emails and they must take it as a security threat to you. I'm not sure how these sites work but I know many sites keep profiles active even after we ask for them to be deactivated or deleted. Such a nuisance but at least they can't really reach you any more.

When I (stupidly) joined yourbuddy24, I gave an email address that I don't use and has been attracting a lot of spam. Yourbuddy24 did give me instructions as to how to close my account with them - it was the same procedure I tried many times that did not work. It is 2014, and I'm quite sure that MiraBlue character is still pleading with me to get in touch with her - believe me, I have no intentions of doing so. But, even if I wanted to, I have to buy coins and I don't like the smell from that site. It attracts a lot of complaints - something I should have checked before joining - so hopefully some day, they'll be shut down.

Christmas seemed to be the season for scammers. I have a lot of respect for Connecting Singles (CS) - I met someone through that site a few years ago, but it didn't last .

So, over the Xmas holidays, I created a profile and tried my luck. I had only joined when someone "in America" wrote to me, she seemed nice so I wrote back, but alas the usual - a hard luck story, something about Ghana and a private email address to write to her. I blocked her and reported her to CS. Within a day, she was booted off the site. Next up, was a lady in South Africa - CarolineBobby - she said she was a hotel manager, she was originally from Jamaica, she was a former lingerie model. She was a widow with 2 children (17 and 7), but yet said she lived alone. She said she loved the beach, but then said she never goes near the beach 'cos her house has a pool. To cut a long story short, we only began writing on New Years' Eve, and within 3-4 days, she was referring to me as honey, luv, darling, dear. To be honest, I'm no babe magnet, but somehow in this woman's eyes, I was her dream. On Friday (3 Jan) she asked me was I on Skype or Viber (I had to Google that last one) and I got her private email address. So, that evening, I waited for her to come online via Skype, she never did.

I was not online on Saturday, but when I logged in on Sunday - guess what? CarolineBobby had disappeared! Her profile had vanished from CS. I had suspicions all along, and they appeared correct. In the wake of her disappearance from the site, I shut down my CS profile (at least I was able to do so) and I shall not be online dating anymore. If I can't meet someone "offline" then I'll do as I am, thanks.

I have to say, though, that CS is an example of how an online dating site should be run. If anyone falls foul of scammers on that site and report them, the CS guys act very swiftly to kick them off. Its good to have that peace of mind. In spite of that, though, my advice is to get with a good "offline" dating agency, or join clubs and groups or don't be shy about asking friends to fix you up with someone that they know might be single.

Be careful out there, and happy new year.