Sweetheart Scams: Online Dating's Billion-Dollar Swindle

by Clarence Jones

Overview

The popularity of online dating has grown so rapidly in recent years that nearly half the couples who marry now, or begin committed relationships, meet each other through Internet websites.

Love is blind, they used to say. And as this new technique for finding the love of your life grows, swindlers are cashing in on those eyesight problems. Many who use the services are emotionally vulnerable and easy to fleece.

So vulnerable, the FBI said in a 2016 report, scammers stole more than a billion dollars from them that year. The losses and emotional pain are expected to grow.

That’s what this book is about. It explains how the scammers work, how they think and plot, and how you can detect and avoid them. It’s a very personal story, written by Clarence Jones, one of America’s most honored investigative reporters.

After a divorce, Jones signed up with two online dating services. He was astounded by the massive fraud and deception he encountered. To do the research for this book, he eventually became a member of a dozen services. He divides them into two types – Meetup dating sites and Hookup dating sites.

He learned that many Hookup websites are actually interactive pornography, where members – both men and women – are fully nude in their profile photos. On some of the overloaded Hookup sites, virtually all the members you’ll chat with are phony “bots” cleverly designed to increase profits for the website owner.

Some websites specialize in helping husbands and wives cheat on their spouses. And some of Hookup websites have become today’s version of a pimp – a clever way to manage escorts and prostitutes and avoid prosecution.

He’ll walk you through the process he encountered, step-by-step. Then show you how to detect fictitious members who claim to have fallen in love with you. If you’re searching for a date -- or or the love of your life -- this book can save you a lot of money; and help you avoid a lot of embarrassment and emotional distress.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940155085300
Publisher:	Clarence Jones
Publication date:	12/13/2017
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Clarence Jones is an on-camera coach who teaches media survival skills. He knows what he's talking about. After 30 years of reporting in both newspapers and television, he wrote Winning with the News Media - A Self-Defense Manual When You're the Story. Now in its 9th Edition, many call it "the bible" on news media relations. Then he formed his own media relations firm to (in his words) "teach people like you how to cope with SOBs like me."

At WPLG-TV in Miami, he was one of the nation's most-honored reporters. He won four Emmys and became the first reporter for a local station to ever win three duPont-Columbia Awards - TV's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.

In addition to his day job as a news media consultant, he writes more books and magazine articles. He builds his own computers and invents clever devices to for his sailboat. Nine of his books are now available in both print and e-book formats -- Winning with the News Media, They're Gonna Murder You (his memoirs), Sweetheart Scams - Online Dating's Billion Dollar Swindle, LED Basics - Choosing and Using the Magic Light, Sailboat Projects, More Sailboat Projects, Webcam Savvy for the Job or the News, Webcam Savvy for Telemedicine, and Filming Family History.

Clarence started working full-time as a daily newspaper reporter while he was earning his journalism degree at the University of Florida. He was named Capitol correspondent in Tallahassee for the Florida Times-Union one year after graduating from college. Six years later, as one of the nation's most promising young journalists, he was granted a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.

After Harvard, he was hired by the Miami Herald, where he was part of a year-long investigation that resulted in corruption charges against the sheriff and his top aides. The Herald stories led to a referendum that abolished the office of sheriff. Miami-Dade is the only county in Florida with an appointed public safety director. Clarence covered Martin Luther King's Civil Rights campaign all across the South for the Herald. His last newspaper position was Washington correspondent for the Herald.

He then moved to Louisville, Kentucky to work under deep cover for eight months, investigating political and law enforcement corruption for WHAS-TV. Posing as a gambler, he visited illegal bookie joints daily, carrying a hidden camera and tape recorder. His documentaries during a two-year stint in Louisville gained immediate national attention. He returned to Miami in 1972 to become the investigative reporter for WPLG-TV, the ABC affiliate owned by Post-Newsweek Corp.

Specializing in organized crime and law enforcement corruption, his work at WPLG earned four Emmys and three duPont-Columbia Awards (television's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize). He also won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for "The Billion-Dollar Ghetto," a 10-story series that examined the causes of the riots that burned much of Liberty City and killed 18 people in 1980.

While he was reporting, he taught broadcast journalism for five years as an adjunct professor at the University of Miami.

He lives near the mouth of Tampa Bay, where he sails a 28-foot Catalina, and frequently publishes magazine articles showing how to make gadgets and accessories he invents for his boat. All of his books are available in both print and e-book versions.