Did they contact you and immediately give you their email address so they can speak to you off the site?
Is their account no longer on the site? They claim to have removed it because they found true love with you and don't need it anymore, but the truth is that the site closed their account down for mass mailing.
Do they have their first and last names mixed, such as Smith Michael? Scammers often mix up first and last names.
Do they misspell their name, Marry instead of Mary, Scoot instead of Scott and so on?
Do they say "Am XXXXXX by name", "Am the only child of my parents" or "Am an engineer by profession"? Using "Am" instead of "I am" is a typically West African way of speaking. A huge warning sign if they use photos of Caucasians.
Do they "BUZZ" or "DING" you constantly when you talk in instant message?
Are they vague about the place they claim to live at? Can they tell you about the place with any kind of detail and without pauses that give them time to search for answers?
Do they give an occupation as part of their name, such as Engineer Davies Fred?
Do they ask you to appear on webcam, but come up with excuses why they can't appear on webcam. Not the case when they admit from the start to being a West African male.
Do they claim to be from the UK/USA/Germany etc. but "currently in Africa"? This will be to explain away why they need money sent to Africa.
Does their accent sound like the nationality they claim to be? Many will pretend to have a parent from Nigeria and one from another country to try to cover this.
Do they mention a refugee camp in Senegal? Google phrases from their emails and you'll see they use very similar scripts a lot. There's one line that talks about how the weather is "a little cold" in one of the scripts that we see a lot.
Does it ever seem like you're not talking to just one person? Scammers often work in groups and you may be talking to 3 or 4 different people all claiming to be the same person.
Do they give you a UK number that starts with 070 or an American number that starts with 206? Both are internet "follow me" numbers that can redirect to anywhere in the world.
Do they claim to be a soldier, and either ask you for help in bringing cash or an item out of the country, or tell you that they need special equipment to be able to talk to you before giving you the address of the company that can supply the equipment?
Do any phrases from their emails show up on search engines? They often use the same scripted messages to dozens, maybe hundreds of victims, plus scammers will steal each other's "format". They also steal poems from poetry sites and pretend they wrote it.
Check the IP address in their emails to see if they show the location they claim to be at, if they're listed as being used with scams or if they're listed as proxies.
Use Tineye.com and ScamDigger.com to see if their photos have been stolen. SD has over 100,000 images that have been used by scammers, but not finding it there doesn't mean they're not a scammer. It simply means that photo isn't in its database.
Do they ask for money? Do they ask for you to send it via Western Union or MoneyGram, or to have your bank details so they can send you money?
Do they mention basic travel allowance? This is a common trick used by scammers. BTA doesn't exist, and when it did, it wasn't in the form the scammers claim.
Are they in the Ukraine and asking for translation fees so they can continue talking to you?
These are just basic pointers. Even if none of these apply to you, the moment they ask for money for any reason is the time to walk away. Walk away and don't even give them a second thought.
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