Internet Dating Safety: What to Do if Your Chatmate Wants to Send Gifts

Internet dating is safe because of the distance between you and your date, right? Wrong! Once you start falling for your internet date, you will experience the same ‘trance’ that happens when you’re dating the normal way. Sweet, romantic words from your chatmate could lull you into making hasty decisions that could lead to major dating mistakes or more serious consequences like identity theft or stalking.

The fact is, opening your life to complete strangers is a risk you have to take whether the venue is online or offline. We rationalize that love cannot come when we don’t take risks, but there are certain things we can do to ensure we’re a bit more protected from scammers and malicious individuals that try to invade our personal space.

Internet dating is now a widely accepted means of finding your soul mate. Convenient and fast, you can simply log on to your favorite dating site and start chatting. However, you should know that people online are sometimes not who they claim to be.

Here’s what you need to do when you’re dealing with a chatmate who wants to send you romantic gifts and flowers (for Christmas, birthday, Valentine’s etc).

Accept the gift, but use a mail forwarder to receive it.

Whether you live in the same country or not, you can use mail forwarders to receive gifts and letters from strangers. I recommend Earthclass Mail because it’s what I use to receive book chapters for review requests, reading materials from clients, magazine subscriptions and other things that google mail can’t handle.

You’ll get a street address in a US city and your new online sweetie can send your gifts there. You can scan the material for free and decide whether or not you want the mail sent to your house. You may have to pay for shipping, but this is the safest way to receive gifts by snail mail from people.

Need to know more about the person?

Do some detective work. You can use various online tools like Reverse phone detective, which requires only a cell phone number input, to find out more about the location of your would-be date.

Express your concerns and observe his or her reaction

One sure sign of a scammer is being overly defensive when someone shows suspicion. You’ve probably heard the line “you don’t trust me” said defensively in the past. You know what that means, right? If your online date insists that you show your trust by giving your real address, or any other data he or she can use to access your bank, close the browser and just run! If your date’s sincere, he will understand your concerns and won’t rush you.

And finally, trust your gut instinct. You may have a lot of reasons to start loving someone you met online, but if something does not add up, or if something feels wrong… leave.