Match.Com, an online matchmaking service, provides these tips to help spot deceptive people online and avoid potentially dangerous situations:
1. Join a service that strictly prohibits harassment and the use of inappropriate content.
2. Correspond through your anonymous handle. (Good services will provide members with user names or passwords to protect the identity of their real e-mail addresses.) Don't prematurely reveal any personal information (last name, city, phone number, where you work).
3. Be aware of “red flag” behavior:
• Gives inconsistent information about age, interests, appearance, marital status, profession, employment.
• Frequently disappears and becomes unreachable by phone or e-mail.
• Refuses to speak to you on the phone after establishing ongoing, online intimacy.
• Refuses to give you a home number and calls you only from work.
• Fails to provide direct answers to questions.
• Appears in person to be significantly different from his or her online persona.
• Never introduces you to friends, professional associates or family members.
• Reveals nothing about his or her own life but interrogates you.
• Exhibits inappropriate, manipulative, angry or controlling behavior.
4. Trust your instincts. Even if you have no tangible evidence that something is wrong or someone is lying to you, if your gut feeling leaves you suspect, move on.
5. When meeting for the first time, use common sense, as you would on any first date:
• Meet in a public place during a busy time.
• Arrive and leave in your own car. Some people make efforts to conceal their license plate number and insist on walking to their own car.
• Keep the first date short (making it easier to make a quick getaway, if necessary).
• Tell a friend about the meeting and arrange to check in afterward.
