An Almost Deadly Romance Scam

Far too often violent criminals lure innocent victims to seemingly romantic locations just to hurt them!

This is happening almost every day because the public ignores the dangers and proceeds like everyone online to safe and sane. It is anything but that!

An Example

This victim recovered after being lured, stabbed by a fake online dating relationship

According to Fox13 Tampa Bay Florida:

WESLEY CHAPEL, FLORIDA (FOX 13) – A young father was set-up, ambushed, and nearly stabbed to death in a Pasco County neighborhood, according to sheriff’s office investigators.

Sitting in a hospital bed in the ICU, Cody Reilly has a long fight ahead of him.

“I just want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers through this tough time,” Reilly said.

The 22-year-old has a total of 18-stab wounds all over his neck, back, and chest. Thankfully, none of those stabs hit any major organs and Reilly should make a full recovery.

“He’s having trouble talking right now, his voice is very raspy because one of his vocal chords is paralyzed,” Reilly’s girlfriend, Maya Kane said. “But other than that, he’s still making jokes, he’s still our Cody.”

She says thinking about their 8-month-old son, Xander helped Reilly push through the brutal ambush Monday night.

Kane got worried when Reilly didn’t come home after work, then got the news that he had been stabbed.

“I’m still in complete shock that I almost lost the love of my life, the father of my son,” said Kane.

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office says Reilly drove to the Chapel Pines subdivision in Wesley Chapel to help a woman he was communicating with over Facebook.

Investigators would not go into many details, but Reilly’s father says his son was lured to Buckhead Court after an elaborate catfish-like scheme.

“We’re not talking that this was something that was done over a short period of time, there was several months that this was taking place,” Mike Reilly said.

According to deputies, after Reilly parked, he was violently attacked from behind.  The Lutz man was flown to a Tampa hospital in critical condition.

“I just wouldn’t wish this on anybody, you know, as a parent, walking into the scene that we walked into, it’s gut-wrenching,” said Mike. “You know, you feel helpless, you feel hopeless; you feel there’s nothing you can do.”

Investigators say they are now searching for Blake Butler for attempted homicide. The 26-year-old lives just a few doors down from where the stabbing happened.

Deputies say it appears Butler created a fake Facebook account and was posing as the woman chatting with Reilly. However, authorities do not believe the two know each other.

Loved ones tell us they want to see Butler behind bars.

“I just really hope we can find the guy that did this,” Reilly said.

Investigators said Butler has violent tendencies and may have shaved the hair off his head and face.  Online court records show past arrests for drugs, burglary, grand theft and arson, among others.

If you know where Butler is, call 911 immediately.

Source: http://www.fox13news.com/news/local-news/victim-recovering-after-being-lured-stabbed

Just An Example

Online dating brings many dangers that most people tend to ignore.

In addition to all the professional scammers from around the world, there are also many local dangers. Dangers from pedophiles, human traffickers, and violent offenders. Online dating is a haven for people that are looking to act out their evil intent.

Everyone that uses any online dating platform has to consider all of the potential dangers because if they don’t then they can turn very real very quickly.

Another One

Here is another example from the Guardian

Violent men are to blame, not Tinder. But online dating comes with risk

After the horrific murder of Grace Millane, it’s worth reflecting on safety measures for [online] dating

Women, please never feel that you have to be “cool” about dating strangers you meet online.

The killer of Grace Millane has been jailed for life, a minimum of 17 years, for strangling her to death in a hotel room in Auckland, New Zealand, after a Tinder date, the night before her 22nd birthday. Afterwards, the man, whose name has been suppressed, watched porn and took intimate “trophy” photos of the British backpacker. He set up another date for the following day, leaving her body in the hotel room.

When caught, he tried to plead the sinister, increasingly popular, “rough sex gone wrong” defence. (The detective inspector in the case said: “Strangling someone for five to 10 minutes until they die is not rough sex”.) It might seem almost incidental that Millane met her killer online. Maybe it is, maybe not.

Online dating sites have been around for too long for the genie to be put back into the bottle. Nor is it necessary, but do we all need to wake up, just in terms of safety?

This isn’t about victim-blaming – only one person was responsible for Millane’s death. Nor is it about morality – I couldn’t care less who people sleep with or how long they’ve known them. This is about women deserving to be safe and how the online dating model fails them, not least by putting a covert pressure on them to casually put themselves at risk.

It could be said that much of the no-strings, arguably male-centric online hooking-up model fails anyone who’s looking for a relationship. But, for now, let’s focus purely on safety. Online dating has effectively normalised risk for women. Chatting online produces a mirage of familiarity where normal rules become blurred, making it easy for people to forget that, when they meet, they’re on a blind date.

Of course, any kind of dating is risky – life is risky – but when it comes to one on one, alone in a room, a woman would usually be physically weaker than a man and therefore less able to fend off an attack. It doesn’t mean that men aren’t sometimes vulnerable, rather that women are nearly always vulnerable – they’re always taking a chance.

However casual the encounter, women need to protect themselves, not just by initially meeting in a public place, but also by listing their locations all the way through and perhaps taking a photo of themselves with their date and storing it online. Don’t apologise, just do it, be upfront and “uncool” about it. If someone doesn’t like it, or calls you paranoid or weird, get out of there.

Men need to start appreciating the huge risks women take with online dating or at least stop diminishing them. Sorry if this comes across as mumsy or prescriptive, but cases like this haunt me; devastated families like the Millanes break me. While there’s nothing wrong with casual sex, don’t be casual about safety.

Source: Violent men are to blame, not Tinder. But online dating comes with risk | Barbara Ellen | The Guardian

Online Dating Is Risky Regardless Of Anyone’s Age

According to information from the U.K.

Dark side of online dating: Crimes rise dramatically in last five years in the UK.

Seven million UK residents are registered on dating sites, and around one in three relationships in the UK now start online.

Reported crimes related to online dating have risen dramatically in the last five years, but still only one in 30 report them.

Figures from the UK police forces show that 2,054 offences were recorded between 2011 and 2016. In 2011, 140 crimes were recorded, by 2016 that had risen to 676 – a 382% increase.

In the same period, the number of sexual crimes reported rose from 14 to 106 and violent attacks were up from 29 to 240 in the same regions of the UK.

Dating Industry Insiders Say Online Dating Can Be Dangerous!

According to sources inside the dating industry the chance of meeting a dangerous stranger online are now 1 in 10

There have been incidents where romance scams have led to murders and kidnapping. It can be used to attract a person from the Internet and allow them to meet them in person. The person faking their identity can lure a victim to a place to be kidnapped, or hurt in another way. Online fake profiles have also been a new way for sexual predators to interact with their victims and possibly harm them creating another threat. These sexual predators use fake identities to talk to teens, allowing them to get close to them so that the victim will trust them. This then allows for the predator to get information from the victim to use that information to potentially harm them. An example of this was the 2007 murder of Carly Ryan

A Romance Scam is also a way to harass others online and has increased the number of suicides in teens as mental abuse is involved.

Americans, especially are much worse at estimating their own risk of crime than guessing the danger of other bad things. A study done between 1994 and 2004 showed people estimated their chances of being robbed at 15%. The rate was actually 1.2%. Respondents did much better in other categories, for example, guessing their risk of losing their job was 14.5%, when it was actually 12.9%, much closer to reality.

Summary

When it comes to assessing the risk of danger you cannot use your brain, since it will fail you. Gut instinct is not as reliable as people think either. You simply have to train yourself the be risk-averse and learn behaviors that keep you out of harm’s way!

Will you be the next statistic or will you change the way you approach online dangers?

TAGS: SCARS, Information About Scams, Anti-Scam, Scams, Scammers, Fraudsters, Cybercrime, Crybercriminals, Romance Scams, Scam Victims, Online Fraud, Online Crime Is Real Crime, Scam Avoidance, Married Scam Victims, Internet Infidelity, Scam Victim Divorce