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| social love |
A
friend of mine who knows that my line of work involves internet
security came to me with a problem she faced. A friend of hers met a
guy from a different country on one of these social networks and fell
in love with him over time. It might be important to note that it was
the guy who initiated the contact.
That’s
generally great; however, my friend is afraid that he may be trying
to play her friend and after hearing the story I think she is quite
right to be worried, so much so that I believe it’s even worse than
what she was initially suspecting.
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| Fake Love
|
The
first red flag was raised when this guy said that he really wants to
meet her but unfortunately needs a large sum of money in order to get
a visa to visit the country. Classic dating scam. Luckily the sum
which he said he needed was so large that she couldn’t afford it,
because if she did it is quite likely that she would have sent it
over without a second thought. As if that wasn’t enough proof of
this person’s malicious intent, another girl contacted my friend’s
friend and told her about her bad experience with this person and
cautioned her to be careful. However, when confronted with this
information, the potentially malicious person said that he used to
date the girl who had contacted her but had left her a while ago and
now she just wants revenge. The girl believed his story even in light
of the earlier scam attempt.
However
what really got me worried was what came next. This guy suggested
that they should meet in a different country and get married there.
The biggest problem here is that, as far as I could tell from my
research, the country which he suggested and the home country of this
girl has the same exact same visa requirements. Actually the country
which he suggested requires extra monetary guaranties that he would
need to fulfill, which he wouldn’t need to for a visa in the girl’s
country of residence. What’s a lot worse is that the country which
he suggested is pretty well known for human trafficking.
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| Fake Love
|
And
this had a profound effect on me because the first thing that went
through my mind is one of the first things that you’re taught in
security i.e. never think that it cannot happen to you. I honestly
admit that my first thought was that it couldn’t possibly be that
bad, I was just being paranoid. But then my security instinct kicked
in and I decided that it’s better to be safe than sorry so I told
my friend what I was suspecting – that this guy tried to scam the
girl, but because she wasn’t rich enough to satisfy his scam, he
might be going to plan B which is to try to sell her instead. I
didn’t take this decision lightly; I know my friend came to me to
ease her worry primarily and I was about to make it a lot worse but I
dreaded the consequences which would be a lot worse, if it turned out
that I wasn’t being paranoid after all.
After
a lot of effort we managed to convince the girl not to travel to meet
him, however she still insists that he is genuine. Yes, she still
thinks that she wasn’t being scammed when he asked her for money.
