I was chatting with a lovely woman on my street who I have come to know through my daily walks. She has a little dog named Partner, who is all fur and no substance and was abused so it took a while for him to relax and not be frightened of strangers. My new friend’s name is Jaci (pronounced Jackie) and she told me a story of her sister.

The sister has been divorced four years, in her late 40s, I am guessing, and decided she was ready to date again (it would have taken me maybe four weeks, but what the hell). She joined an on-line Christian dating site and began to correspond with a fellow who, it seemed to her, was just perfect-o. He was from New Jersey, but was temporarily working on a job in England. They made arrangements to meet on a Monday after he returned to the States with his young son.

Comes the Monday, she gets an E mail. He and son were in a cab on their way to the airport when the driver took a wrong turn (oh, no) and they found themselves in a bad neighborhood (oh, no again) where they were set upon by thugs (zounds!!), and beaten and (gulp) robbed and the boy’s ankle was hurt. Because it was a crime, the police held on to their i.d.s and stuff, and at the hospital where the boy was being treated, the fellow had trouble paying the bill. So (this request in a 4th or 5th E mail after a series of elaborate updates during which sis consoled and sympathized) could she wire him $1500 in this dire emergency?

The sister knew then that it was a scam and was deeply disappointed and furious. She called the police, she tried to get Yahoo involved, she is doing everything she can to expose this fraud, but there are few mechanisms in place to deal with this kind of scam so I don’t expect her to be successful. She would like to spare someone else from being taken in. However, I think she is already too late because such a scammer doesn’t do serial scamming. He does multiples. He has, I am sure, E mails out to a dozen women in various stages of the game leading up to the “I am coming to the States” E mail, followed by the oh-no sequence. Another red flag that should have alerted her was that the time difference made it impossible for them to talk. What? Six hours? Yes, she was gullible.

It’s more reliable to join a more-or-less vetted dating service such as E Harmony or Match.com, where they research the accuracy of member profiles. Just calling yourself a Christian dating service (that would certainly scare me away as would any service based on religion) doesn’t do it, and how do they know, anyway, what you are if they are not checking you?

Years ago, in the Personals section of the Village Voice, a guy had a long-running ad with only this line: “Mr. Wrong” and a phone no. I’ll bet he got tons of responses based on the fantasy that many young women have that THEIR charms will change him. Oh boy, a challenge. For ME, he’ll change. Duh.

xx, Teal

P.S. I stuck this in "Life & Events" because there is no category for singles or dating or social activities. Given the current explosion of new ways of meeting people, I am surprised.