The Dangers of Online Dating

The Killer May Have Been the Date from Hell!

Sonia Varaschin was killed because she was lonely.

This worst case scenario emphasizes the inherent risks of meeting people online. Although the police were able to successfully research the victim's computer, it was too late to help Sonia.

When someone chooses a site like plentyoffish, they are actually seriously increasing their risk of exposure to predators. Let me clarify that comment.
I am not singling our plentyoffish.com, because other free online dating sites like OKcupid.com fall in the same camp.  I will not try to list them all. Many sites walk the fine edge of maximum danger without actually realizing it.

The problem here is that any site that allows two people to communicate in any way for free is dangerous. Here is why.

There are lots of weirdos out there. Some are just lacking social skills, but others are sociopaths. There is a very real chance that someone who appears to be nice in a chat room is not so wonderful in real life, and the most dangerous ones are very clever at hiding their anti-social behavior. Of course the acme of risk resides with people who not only stalk you, but who seek to do you harm. They may think nothing of taking your life.

You may wonder why I am singling out free online dating sites, when in fact I am not.
This range of sites also includes facebook.com. You may think that it is safe to accept a friend request from the friend of a friend – after all you trust your friends. But in fact, your friend may very well be the type of person who always accepts friend requests without actually knowing the person. You are not safe unless you know which of your friends would never accept friend requests from unknown people.

Social networking sites that require some form of payment before allowing communication are inherently safer. The reason is that the payment process is a very easy trace for police to follow, and for that very reason, sociopaths and known sexual predators stay clear of these sites.  On the other hand, it only takes them a few minutes to set up a string of bogus email account on yahoo ,then set up a phoney email account on gmail ,then delete the yahoo account.  At that point you can now go into the gmail account and point the base email account to some fictitious email account on aol, and you have pretty much left a tough trail for police to track.  Smart stalkers use a trail for free emails spanning several countries and corporate entities, thus becoming more invisible.  Once the stalker has a largely untraceable email account on a free service like gmail, then they are free to use it to join all the free communication sites out there.  If they couple this with a disposable cell phone, you are now fully communicating with someone who looks legit, but is untraceable by anyone. They are free to do what they please with you..

So what can you do about it?
Well the first, and most important step is to stay off of free social network dating sites. They are very risky.
The rest is just a lot of common sense:
1) Make sure you communicate online for a fair length of time before meeting in person. Make sure you do not let them know anything about who you are or where you live, or any outside contact information in the initial stages.
2) At the point where you want to hear their voice, use an untraceable cell phone or myprivateline.com.
3) When communicating, keep your bullshit filters set to maximum alert.  Look for inconsistencies. Look for inconsistencies in what they tell you by asking similar questions and making sure that the answers line up consistently. Lack of consistency in answers is a danger signal – he might be just a BS artist, but it might be something worse. If a stalker is working on you, they are probably pursuing more than one person at the same time and will often mix up the lies.
4) Seek recent photos, and think of some way that you can verify that the photo is recent.
5) Make sure that they understand that you are just being careful. Genuine people will likely applaud your apparent paranoia. You must also be willing to do the same. Use a library and a recent newspaper from another town.
6) Your first date should be in a public place and you should meet him there, and do not go home with your date.
7) Use your camera phone and MMS it to a few friends. Then tell them what you have done that. If they have a problem with you doing this, then get out yesterday!

Use your head before you let yourself lose your heart.

Now if I have not totally freaked you out about online dating sites, here is a good resource page, check out the following link:

Online Dating Sites