Scammers on eHarmony?

Has anyone else gotten an e-mail looking like this one?

Dear eHarmony Friend,

As a past or present user of eHarmony.com, we want to inform you that one of your matches, name from place, has been removed from the eHarmony.com service. Consistent with eHarmony.com’s privacy policy, we do not disclose the reasons for name‘s removal. eHarmony.com disclaims any responsibility or liability with respect to any continued involvement between you and any member whose account is closed by eHarmony.com.

Sincerely,

Customer Care
eHarmony

What gives? The most recent one, their one and only picture was, well, not convincing that they were “real” but I figured I would proceed anyhow but with a healthy dose of caution. The match and I got to OC and after reading their message, it was pretty clear they weren’t a native English speaker. After a round of communication and sending me their e-mail, they closed me out for no reason (probably to force further communication via e-mail) and then I got the e-mail from eHarmony, which confirms my suspicion they were a scammer.

They funny thing is they mentioned they were “on a contract” and working in Africa, specifically Nigeria (and they company they mentioned they were working for, awful forthcoming of them to do so in their first OC, did not have an office in Nigeria).

What, was I born yesterday, Mr/Mrs Scammer? I think not.

My question is since this wasn’t during free communication weekend, they must have been a paid subscriber. If so, how did they they pay for the service and why wasn’t their basic information checked during the credit card billing process and found that they were either using a stolen credit card number or had mismatched addresses? They should be flagging suspicious accounts sooner to protect the interests of the rest of their legitimate users.

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Comments 17

SingleGuyInNC wrote:
Well, I e-mailed another match to the point they fessed up to being spirited away overseas and asked for money to help them come back to the US. What else is there to do when your other “real” matches don’t respond to communication?

I forwarded their 419 e-mail to Yahoo abuse and the e-mail chain to eHarmony. Let’s see how long until I get a message from eHarmony customer care removing them from the system.

One less scammer, or so I thought until another match just sent me their first message in OC who says they are temporarily living in Nigeria..
Posted 11 Jan 2008 at 8:01 pm ¶
SingleGuyInNC wrote:
5 days/3 business days until I got a response from eHarmony:

“Thank you for contacting eHarmony.

We apologize that you received such a match from our service. Please know that we do attempt to remove anyone attempting to use the service with a falsified profile.

We thank you again for bringing this match to our attention, and apologize for not having located this individual before she was able to contact you. We have removed that match from our site and your account.

We wish you all the best.”

They didn’t seem to investigate the second match I suspected was also a scammer, though. Either they weren’t paying attention or you have to drag things out and get additional evidence to get their attention. I guess I’ll drag things out further on this one as well and do the eHarmony community a service…
Posted 17 Jan 2008 at 1:17 pm ¶
SingleguyTX wrote:
Okay gang. I have just had my first encounter with a scammer at eharmony. She was using the name Rose Philips and was “temporarily” living in Nigeria. Sound familiar. It should. Well, I finally caught on once she asked for me to cover 200 USD internet bill. She was also using the following e-mail address:

rose_philips_80@hotmail.com

Good luck to any of you all who fall into her grips!
Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 9:26 am ¶
SingleGuyInNC wrote:
I think I’ve now sent in another two or three more scammers to eH CS.
Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 12:53 pm ¶
SingleGuyInNC wrote:
I have now reported 13 scammers in 6 months and I think there are at least two more in my current matches. It is taking eHarmony CS longer (several days) to respond to my submissions than before.
Posted 08 May 2008 at 12:23 pm ¶
Shar wrote:
Nigeria = Scammer

Have you tried narrowing your matches to 30 or 60 miles?

I have been on eHarmony for three months and haven’t seen a scammer yet.

If you aren’t getting any responses from “real” women, you may want to have a female friend who isn’t afraid of telling you the truth look at your profile. There might be an unintentional giant red flag somewhere in there.
Posted 08 May 2008 at 2:44 pm ¶
SingleGuyInNC wrote:
Shar, thanks for the comments specific to my situation. I’m at my wit’s end trying to make changes towards improvement. I don’t think that changing my profile will help me in my situation.

“Have you tried narrowing your matches to 30 or 60 miles?”

That’s how I started on the service. I was counting almost a week between getting new matches (like one or two). I changed some of my other preferences and it improved but not drastically.

As it stands now, I think I get maybe one match per week in NC. I expanded my search to the entire US for several months. Most of those further away matches close me due to distance or “other”, which is expected. The rest usually do nothing and a few have shown some interaction/interest. I’m finding that trying to start a relationship long-distance, as positive as eHarmony tries to upsell it as a great asset of the service, isn’t very effective.

The general trend for those I am matched with in my state (and I am in a densely populated and possibly the most diverse part of the state) is they close me out.

I believe that my basic biographical attributes (what’s not in the free-response portion profile) do not work well for my location (and based on the results from matches further away, I’m beginning to wonder if they will work anywhere else).

I had a female friend review what I wrote for my profile when I initially signed up and she didn’t find anything wrong. I can ask for another review. I’ve had other dating profiles reviewed by “the public” and haven’t had anyone come up with anything constructive to change.

My personal feeling at this point in time is that my problem has to do with who I am and can’t be edited out of my profile without lying.
Posted 09 May 2008 at 2:09 pm ¶
Shar wrote:
Hi.

What are your “basic biographical attributes”?

Could they be changed by eHarmony if you said you made a mistake?

For instance, let’s say you didn’t graduate high school, but are self-educated. It would be a lie to claim you had some sort of advanced degree, but I wouldn’t consider it a lie if you took your experience that equaled a high school diploma and claimed such.

Saying you are 50 if you are 70 is a lie, but some substitutions are not lies, as long as they are the equivalent of.

I wouldn’t put too much faith in “the public” at large, lol. Often, nothing being drastically wrong also doesn’t mean that anything is particularly fascinating either. It could fall into the meh category.

If you want, cut & paste some of your “about me” and I’ll give you an unvarnished female opinion.
Posted 10 May 2008 at 12:49 pm ¶
steven william wrote:
Has anyone on e harmony came in contact with a man named steven william in Asheville nc
Posted 17 May 2008 at 6:39 pm ¶
eHarmony Blog wrote:
There are 5 Williams listed in the town of Asheville phonebook. Asheville (population 73,000) is a small town–you can ask around.
Posted 17 May 2008 at 8:59 pm ¶
Shar wrote:
Having two traditional first names as a given name AND surname is a big red flag that they may be a scammer.

For whatever reason, these scammers don’t seem to be very original in naming their alter egos.

ie:

Steven William
Michael Phillip
Jon Andrew
Kevin John

etc.
Posted 18 May 2008 at 12:15 pm ¶
Shelly wrote:
These scammers are hitting eHarmony hard. Here are a few other hints… Ethnicity might say “Native American.” I believe they think “Native American” actually means anyone born in the US.

The picture looks too perfect, like something out of a magazine.

Then there is usually a problem with venacular. One of my deleted matches said he went to “University” in the US. Ummm in the US when we talk about higher education, we say we went or go to “college”. We would never say that we attend “university” unless we are referencing the exact name of the school.
Posted 22 Jul 2008 at 6:49 pm ¶
pat wrote:
I am not sure . I found 2 VETS from Liverpool and London and 1 automobile engineer from DC. asked for money. Has anyone happened to contact with Scoth White, Charles Marksman, David Cole.?..Another suspicious was Norman Davies…
Charles Marksman had been removed from eHarmony but I have never known the reason. I wish I have.
I am Thai , English is my 2nd language. Please do not doubt me. I am good not a scamer..Please give me opinions..Thanks..Pat
Posted 11 Nov 2008 at 8:47 pm ¶
Jennifer wrote:
Hi SingleGuyInNc,

I just wanted to tell you that I too narrowed by search, but I still got scammed from a guy who said he was from Mississippi. Anyway, I closed my account because of it and will not join any other online dating service. This scared me to deaf because I am a single parent of a small child. Anyway, I wanted to wish you luck in your search for for mate and it probably isn’t anything in your profile. I didn’t have much luck in the communication field either. My matches did close me out if they thought they were to far away. Sometimes I would see if my match would be willing to relocate for a relationship as I am not able to relocate. It always ended before it really began. Good luck again and God Bless.
Posted 28 Nov 2008 at 7:38 pm ¶
Jennifer wrote:
Hi Pat,

My advice would be to discontinue communications at once. If they are a vet, and they are traveling then they have access to their money. Believe me they are scammers.
Posted 28 Nov 2008 at 7:41 pm ¶
SingleGuyInNC wrote:
Jennifer,

Thanks for sharing your experience.

It’s nearly been a year since I originally wrote this. The number of scammers I’ve encountered have significantly dropped due to a couple of things:
1) Re-took personality test
2) Widened search net, in the process of doing so, I think that some of the changes I made of being less restrictive made my profile less attractive to match to those wanting to prey upon
3) Have encountered a few more matches that looked suspicious but was not even able to communicate with to expose as scammers

I have not and wouldn’t go as far as to recommend quitting all online dating because there are scammers on the Internet. You just have to have your thinking cap on and have a “high index of suspicion”, especially if it is too good to be true. Bad people are everywhere and you are just as likely to be victimized by someone that you meet through other means or is a member of your community.
Posted 29 Nov 2008 at 12:09 am ¶
Dating Muslim wrote:
13 Scammers in 6 months?!

Is that for real, SingleGuyInNC? Are these numbers just increasing by the month? I’m feeling that EHarmony might not be as safe as I once thought…
Posted 06 Feb 2012 at 9:11 pm ¶

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