How to take precautions to prevent honey trap cases

This is a reasonably new variety of fraud that has surfaced in the Online Dating world. Like 99% of other cons, the intent is to filter money out of you through deception. The fraudster will pose as a member of the armed forces and be posted overseas somewhere. Apart from making you feel a sense of obligation to communicate because of the nature of their work they typically have some second tier sob story to tell as well. They play on the fact that women are not only attracted to men in the services but also that they are risking their lives to defend the nation.

Then came the main play, he had some bad news! His unit was moving into a remote area and there wasn’t going to be any Internet service there. He had a plan as to how they could keep in touch. There was a private engineering company near where they would be stationed and they would be able to provide Internet access so they could keep in touch. He gave her an email address and told her she needed to be very careful with the information for security reasons. She contacted the company and a day or so later received a reply with an attached form asking for her personal details including name, address, phone number and service provider. At this point she should have been a tad concerned but she had already accepted this guy as legitimate.

Unwittingly she filled out the form with both his and her information and returned it to the company. When she received the reply the alarm bells started to ring. The company was asking her to wire $1,500 to a private account to get the service up and running. The penny dropped and she now realized that she had been caught up in a fraudulent event. Fortunately no money was ever paid but her personal details where now in the hands of an obviously unscrupulous person. Apart from the hurt and humiliation she was embarrassed and angry. It turned out that the deception had actually originated from some organized crime group in Nigeria where these cons are prolific.