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 many con-artists asking for money online.  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 may 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 work.  If you are male the whole thing is likely to be in reverse. The scammer will be a fit looking young female military officer who is divorced and has a teenage child.

And then there is the English.  You're messaging, not video calling. And his/her 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. So here's the thing. 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 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 pretty sure it is a scam. Block and report them.    

Is it possible to be sure someone is not a scammer or con-artist. When I first wrote this post I believed it was.  That was before I thought I had built a friendship with one Kayemba Enock, a young man in whom Mr Segawa Ephriam (Founder/Director of Foster Friends Uganda) saw potential and entrusted with fundraising for Extreme High School. What I now know is that Kayemba Enock became very secretive about his fundraising efforts so that Mr Ephraim and the Board thought Kayemba believed Kayemba had not been successful in any of his efforts. Meanwhile he misrepresented his position in the organisation and exagerated the scale and urgency of the young people's needs so that, once I was satisfied the organisation checked out, and believing Kayemba had become a trusted personal friend, I gave money to an account number he supplied through an email from a fake "administrator" at the School. And he was always available to talk to whereas Mr Ephraim, being a very busy man, and having no special reason to engage with me, proved more difficult to connect with.  

It was in a chance conversation I did have with Mr Ephraim that he revealed the School had never received any money from me. Not a cent. Kayemba was confronted, dismissed from his role, and fled to continue his criminal activity using another "charity" as a front. You can Google "Kayemba Enock" to find out just how convincing a criminal can be.

So, no you absolutely CANNOT be sure someone is not a scammer until you have proof. I senior US Constitution Lawyer who has worked in this space and is a personal friend said to me, "We have a saying, 'Trust and Verify' which means we trust in as much as we are able to verify." 

This is what Live in Love is now about, helping you do exactly that. We want to build a community of four groups of people:

• Individuals reaching out for help
  
• Government Registered and Verified NGOs working in their own communities
  
• Businesses willing to give
  
• Individuals like me who (in the words of an old World Vision motto) live simply so others can simply live.    

We are not there yet. Live in Love itself needs to be registered as a Charity which will require time and money I do not have right now. We need to build an income base which will allow Ritah and I to actual give serious time to this vision. Right now we both work our butts off (her as a carer in Aged Care, me as a support worker for people with mental disability) just to make ends meet and support those we can.

However our vision, if you would like to be a part of it, is to build a community which links these four groups in a way which is safe and brings real hope to people in poor communities in the world.  Please reach out to us at [email protected] if you would like to donate some time and skills to help Ritah and me realise this dream.

If you are a business person and would like to help financially so Ritah and I can put some serious hours into building this work that would also be wonderful.