Online Dating Scams

Craig Personals Scam in brief…

Craig Personals presents itself as a way to verify a date, and to  protect women from sexual predators.  

The site is a facade for sign up to a rotating set of  online dating sites.  When you provide your credit card, you are being redirected  to one of the the dating sites without your knowledge.

The dating site will place a recurring monthly charge of $39.99 on your credit card.   Depending on your browser, and the specific site you landed on, you might not be able to see the $39.99 charge.

There are no women in Craig personals.  It is the all-to-common Get Verified Scam.

If you have found a site that looks anything like the logo (continue reading See Website Pic below), it is a scam.

The Setup 

It starts with an email response to a post/ad/profile.  The immediate giveaway that you have a scam is that when your ‘date’ replies to you, they cannot answer a simple question, like what color is your dress? etc.   When I find these I like to have a little fun, since I know it is a bot, and this  serves as a means to confirm the suspicion.

---

Affiliate ad

---

If you want to see how I flush out the scam, you can Read my post on JustNowHookUps.com.

The site touts that it will verify you, and make sure you are 18 and not a sex offender.  There is no fee for this, it is free.  You just need to provide a credit card so they can verify you.  First you enter some basic information, pick a user ID a password, and give them an email.  Next, you are presented a page that requests your credit card.

In some sites, that is all you can see, but there are hidden charges.  In other sites, there is some fine print you can see.  In terms and conditions, you can find how they make their money…  Thru a charge for a dating site

By pressing ‘NEXT’, I certify that I have read and agree to the complete terms of membership and billing and that the card entered above is my credit card. Your access to Local Dates Here includes a 2 day free trial promo to Your Perfect Match Is Waiting. If you choose to remain a member of Your Perfect Match Is Waiting beyond the trial period, your membership will renew at thirty nine dollars and ninety nine cents. Your membership to Local Dates Here will be Free for Lifetime. You will also receive a free membership to Uberhorny.

Note that I added the emphasis above.  In the actual site, it is hard to pick out.  The additional service seems to vary.  I have seen two variations.   Here is the other:

This site stays legal (so far, sort of) by articulating the conditions and the charges. Unlike some of these sites, the charges are visible.   So if you’re not careful, you are going to have $40.00 in charges on your card.  It would not surprise me that the uberhorny site also has a charge that you haven’t seen yet.   I have known people who have been in this situation and tried to get the services turned off.  Lets just say that the customer service is less than optimal in these situations.    You can read Sam’s story here.  He ended up disputing the charges (successfully with my help), and cancelling his credit card.

Many Craig Personals Scam Sites

Note that there are many URL’s that have the same site title “CraigPersonals”.    They come and go so you might not have connected one of the specific sites found here, if you found this searching Craigpersonals, it is a scam.  Here are a few

• craig-personals.org
• safemeetnow.com
• craigsecureverified.com
• craigslist-safe-meet.com

This is a common logo, and site name (Title) which is different than the URL.

Website Pic

If you see anything like the pic below, its probably a scam.  The scammers copy one site to the next, and including all graphics and typos!  😉

Another Danger – The PushCrew popup

Some of the sites, when you first visit the site you get a pop-up asking if you want notifications. Hopefully you just ignored it, or answered No.

The Pushcrew pop-up is a mechanism for companies to send messages to their customers, bloggers to their subscribers and so on. It is browser based (not email), meaning it will allow the sender to contact their target person, on their browser, regardless of what website they might be visiting. It is a perfectly legitimate technology and legitimate company that runs the service. Like anything else of this nature, your overall experience comes down to the character of the operator, and trust. It can be used as another way to spam you.

It is not clear on exactly Pushcrew works. Pushcrew states that they create unique subscriber ID for the user, and that there is a cookie placed on the browser. My guess is that when you opt-in that they are recording your Internet Protocol (IP) Address.

Bottom line, if you say yes to the pop-up, you are likely to be spammed by the owners of Craig-personals any time you browse the internet.

CraigPersonals is an online dating scam.  

The faking mechanisms are obvious, you can read them below.

Watch the CraigsPersonals  Forensic Video

This video documents exactly what the customer would and would not be able to see.

Internals of the Online Dating Scam website

Faking Area Code Location

The website is designed to make you think that your date is nearby.  in this case, by displaying an area code of your dates phone number.   Unlike other sites that use a browser based java script program to detect your general location, this site does it ‘server side’  meaning that the code to detect where you are is on the server and not visible to the public.   Internet Protocol Address location services usually include the predominant area code, so it is common technology.

The fake is easy enough to detect though, my cell phone connects to the internet in a different place than my home internet.  I can go to the same page at the same time from both and get two different area codes.  (Dude you are so busted!)

Joincheckout.com – You are not typing where you think you are

Thru use of a programming function called an IFrame, the  craig-personals site gathers your email and sign up and credit card entry.

The site frames joincheckout.com. This site has been around since November 2012. It is hosted by cloudflare, on a cyberverse datacenter. The domain is registered anonymously in Panama.

What joincheckout does however, is a redirect. The redirect varies among sites with what seems to be gibberish names:

• deshps.com
• caced.net
• dscrtdtdtn.com
• cpdfdr.com
• mumces.com
• regnoc.net
• hkpdrtydtg.com
• nspdfndv.com
• pvcave.com
• makran.net
• knymchdn.com
• rdyfrsdy.com

And there are hundreds of them.

What is happening here is paid click generation.  The owners of the target site, are compensating joincheckout.com.   If you want to know more about how this money making scheme is working, Read this post on the Matrix of the Scam.

There is a link between the gibberish, and the name of the service in the fine print.  For instance, if you look at the fine print when you are redirected to rdyfrsdy.com, the fine print reads “includes a 2 day free trial promo to Ready For Steady”

I dug in to one of the sites, deshps.com

Registrant Name: Barry Becker  
Registrant Organization: WAY INTERNET MARKETING LIMITED
Registrant Street: 66 High Street

Incorporation papers indicate that the office has been moved to Exeter Office Park, Exeter England, which appears to be a Regus shared office space. The phone number on the registry is false. The owners full name is Mr, Barry Alan Harvey Becker. British Incorporation papers provide a correspondence address – a nice little cottage at 9a Uplands Park Road, Enfield, England.

the online dating scammer – pictures

Jessica’s picture from the website is found in multiple places using a  Tineye Search. 

The page also shows several other potential “dates” as well.  A Tineye search reveals a variety of uses of the pictures including porn sites.

No Security 

Of course you should never provide any personal information or any form of payment to any site like this.  In fact, once you recognize the pattern, you should just end contact quietly.  I take it a step further, just so I can be sure of my facts, and explain to readers what the scam is in detail.  Of course I keep all of my antivirus protection up-to-date.

This site does not use secure encryption which is an absolute must when conducting any financial transactions.   If you’re not familiar just look at the URL – it should start with httpS. My browser (Chrome) has a small padlock icon as well to show that it is secure.  Without the encryption, whatever you type in is openly transmitted on the internet.  The site claims a number of secure authorities such as Verisign but that is a scam too.  There is no security certificate.  Here is the Verisign web site that explains certs and https:  https://www.verisign.com/security

The online dating scam website

Craig-Personals.org  is hosted by an internet service provider Host Gator

The Domain was registered on May 15, 2016.

The domain was registered anonymously.   There is nothing wrong with an anonymous registration.  This is common and recommended for private individuals, who do not want their contact information broadcast to the world. Private registration for a business is unusual, but not unheard of.

A note to help you and to help support this site…

I presume you found this page while trying to meet someone online.  I wish you luck, but if you are a man, you should know that the odds are not in your favor.  The ratio of women to men in online dating works against men.  Once you work thru scammers and fakes, the Ratio’s of 6:1, 10:1 and higher means that the women will get swamped with suitors.  It can be very hard to break thru.

I suggest that you spend some time and invest in yourself.  Find out what is attractive to women, avoid common mistakes, and gain the confidence to meet any woman, anywhere, anytime.  Click on the banner below to learn more.

---

---