1) they contact you, claiming to be from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Western Europe
2) their English sucks, though they claim to be the native English speakers and they say "am" instead of "I am"
3) they give you their email or Yahoo ID in the first 1-2 messages and want to get off-site and chat on messenger
4) they are widowers, their wives died in the horrible car or plane crashes, they raise "a kid" alone, or (if they are females) they are recovering from a bad relationship with a cheating ex.
5) they chat with you, send love letters (stolen from elsewhere and easily googled), sometimes send little gifts, purchased with stolen CC
6) they talk to you on the phone and sound bloody African, but you think it's a sexy "Italian" accent.
7) women send you nude pictures, you can bet they are stolen from porn sites
8) often, they propose you marriage or promise to marry you
9) they even send you "documents": bad photoshopped passports and stuff
10) you are hooked, you are in love
I know this is discussed to death, but it can't hurt having more lists that those with experiences with scammers can add more. I notice that sometimes their game switches up, or that there are other signs about them that are not always stressed, that might be useful to add onto a list for potential victims to watch out for.
Here are things I would like to add to look out for that I have found coming from scammers.
1.) In yahoo instant message they adore the "BUZZ" button. They tend to bang on that thing like it's their job. You don't respond within seconds or minutes and wind up with the every annoying "BUZZ" Sometimes consecutively.
2.) They fall for you too fast. Pushy for relationships. You've talked to them for days and suddenly they are adoring you, falling in love, strong connection to you, etc. They even push the love thing even if you tell them you aren't interested.
3.) Some are claiming to be going for masters degree/post grad, etc. asking for money for certificates or journals for school.
4.) To expound on the bad English, they seem to not capitalize most anything and often sound mentally challenged. They also often say the phrase "I will love to know more about you" or some variation. Oh and "Communication is key" or some variation of that.
5.) Their IPS tend to be either nigerian or black hole proxies that are shared (often starting like 172.....)
6.) They are most always god fearing and christian, Catholic in particular. AND they are most often in search of a god fearing mate.
7.) They don't care whether or not you are god fearing, and sooo christian like they are. (remember they just make those claims simply because that's what they think you want to hear and is appealing)
8.) They emphasize the obvious! As in looking for an "honest" and "sincere" person not into games. Who isn't right? (sometimes real people might do this, but the scammers have at least one or more of the above traits in addition)
9.) The men are using the "cheating ex" thing more and more these days just like the make believe females.
10.) They tend to ignore questions. Maybe answering some but not much of them.
11.) They don't mind your age, gender, sexual preference, or anything about you. (Why would they? They want money. I've even baited some that went after male friends, pretending I was a lesbian just to show my friends how they will be lesbian if I want them to be just for the sake of the scam.)
12.) They claim how much they loved your profile even if your profile is hardly filled out and really too basic to love.
13.) They typically try hard to get you to email them first, or get into web cam with them.
14.) I am finding more these days that some want to go straight to phone texting. Probably they keep trying to approach each other by mistake and this is their way of making sure you aren't one of them.
15.) They may stress that they have a combination of exotic nationalities. Mexican-chinese mix, etc.
16.) They sound like they just fell out of a romance novel and came to life for you. They are perfect in every way, have all the right stuff about them.
17.) They are oh sooo tired of being alone, and seem desperate for a relationship.
That's my list so far, I am sure there can be more to add. Not ALL will happen at once, nor will the scammer show ALL the traits. But you will find a healthy combination of whats on the lists above. People, if you notice ANY of these things from the original list or mine, drop that mugu and move on. I guarantee you there really is plenty of fish in the sea that are for real, you don't need this. I've had more than enough experience with REAL people and FAKE mugus (nigerian scammers) to be able to confidently say, REAL people do not show these signs. Think about how YOU dialogue with others. Real people will dialogue a lot like you do. Its a free flow convo, and getting a real person to answer questions is not like pulling teeth unlike with a mugu.