by Jeff
(Oregon)
I think all the guidelines you've provided about avoiding scammers is SUPER helpful. I'm curious though whether you found scammers mostly don't have a child as part of their profile. My thinking is they wouldn't, because that would be appealing to more guys. But on the other hand, I suppose some might use that as part of their "scamming strategy." In your experience though, have you come across any scammers that did have a child?
And I suppose another way to ask it is if someone meets the basic guidelines of being over 25, non-model super-star looking photos, etc., and they have a child, then should that girl be a pretty safe bet?
Thanks for the great work you do here--- it's SUPER Helpful!!
Bob's Answer:
Thanks for your compliments!
I cannot remember directly encountering any Russian scammers who claimed to have children, but that still would not cause me to lower my guard.
I would suspect that ON AVERAGE it is LESS LIKELY that a woman with a child would be a scammer. But please note the all-caps. Just like a non-supermodel looking woman over 30-35 is LESS LIKELY to be a scammer, same here.
I do note that many scammers (the email-only kind who just start showing up in your email inbox saying "Hi, I got your email address from the site...") do present a more "believable" age (30-40) and pictures (not ugly, but not good looking enough to immediately trigger suspicion).