Can you give safely to people you you meet online whom you haven't met in real life?

The standard online safety answer to my question is, "NO! Never give money to people you meet online whom you haven't met in real life." In fact giving money to people you do know in real life is tricky enough. It can spell the end of a friendship or can damage a family relationship.  And, there are a lot of scams out there.  Particularly those of us who are older can be quite vulnerable to messages, emails, pop-ups and so on which sound too good to be true but we think, "What if it is true?" Well, we learn quickly enough that anything which sounds too good to be true, isn't true. With luck and checking things out first with others, we hopefully learn these lessons without losing money. ' 

What about that stranger who sends you a Facebook friend request and showers you with complement and wants to get to know you? Romantic "love" or "limerence" as the brain drug induced feelings are called, is a powerfully blinding force. So many scammers use it. They create a fake profile and take time to try to get someone to grow to love and trust this fake person they are playing. Almost without exception there will be "red flags" or warning signs that something is not quite right. Perhaps, if you are female, they will claim to be a US Colonel on a secret mission somewhere. They will be divorced and have a daughter whom they adore and miss. All this sounds plausible, except, you ask yourself, "Would a senior military officer on a secret mission really be reaching out on Facebook to a stranger?" Good question. The obvious answer is, "No". So why do you brush it aside? Because, by now, you want to believe him. That's how the brain drugs.  And then there is the English.  You're messaging, not video calling because he's not allowed. And his English just doesn't seem good enough for a senior US military officer. Again, you go along with it and just wonder what this is about.

Well, what it is almost certainly about is that he is not a senior US military officer.  He is, perhaps, Nigerian, or Ugandan, or Kenyan or from some other colonised nation. His English is not poor. It is idiomatic.  It is the form of English grammar and spelling that has developed in that particular nation since it was colonised.  So again, when something doesn't match who a person claims to be, it's safest to assume they are not who they claim to be.

Sooner or later this "romantic" relationship will lead to a some kind of request for money, often to pay money to a third party to pick up a parcel on behalf of this one you have grown to trust and get them to deliver it to you.  It will never arrive.  If you have gone along with this so far, as soon as there is a request for money, you can be 99% sure it is a scam.   

Is it possible to be sure someone is not a scammer without meeting them in real life. Actually I believe it is.  There are many genuine people, especially in poor communities, who simply want to find a friend outside of their community. They may or may not want your financial help to improve their situation. If they do, and are genuine, they will tend to be very direct about it.  Of course you still need to be very careful and assess the risk you are taking realistically. Online relationships are still human relationships in which there is always an element of trust and risk. When we buy a car, there is trust and risk involved. We get advice from experts and do our best to manage the risk. Every transaction involving money involves points at which we have to trust another no matter what the checks and balances.  It is the same with online relationships.

We absolutely must not ignore anything that feels off.  We tuck that away and keep watching for that thing in this relationships. It warns us something about this person or organisation needs looking into before we given anything more than, say, we would spend on a cup of coffee and a slice.  However other relationships grow into deep friendships in which we are as sure of this person as of anyone we know in real life. I have now a number of international friendships like that. We are simply way beyond the point where there is any question of abusing trust.           

This matters, because there is a vast gap between the needs of people in poorer communities in our world and the resources and organisations trying to meet those needs  The point of  "Live in Love" is to encourage friendship between those who are relatively privileged and powerful (that is we have options) and those who are relatively poor and powerless (that is they don't have options). And it is to help people connect with and support local humanitarian organisations working in poorer communities. 

If we only give to the big humanitarian organisations we will be doing some good. We will not, however , be making friends with those who have less wealth and power than we do and allowing their lived reality to challenge ours.