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I was talking to a "woman" (because "on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog") on a social media platform. We exchanged Kik usernames and continued to talk about random stuff.

After she said that I should come over some time, I told her that I was across the country. She told me not to worry because she'll give me travel expenses and a $200 weekly allowance so that I can go to see her.

I instantly got suspicious and was wondering, what's she trying to pull?

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    It doesn’t really matter what she’s trying to pull. It’s clearly not going to be in your best interests to take part in whatever it is, so delete, block and move on.
    – Vicky
    Aug 25, 2019 at 18:51
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    Unless you are a gigolo, why would she give you a weekly allowance?
    – RonJohn
    Aug 25, 2019 at 19:43
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    And if you are a gigolo, would you go anywhere for $200 weekly allowance? I thought $200 would be the hourly rate :-) The only situation where this makes sense is if she assumes you are a child. In which case - do not even THINK about going there. This could be much worse than a money scam.
    – gnasher729
    Aug 26, 2019 at 0:00
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    $200/week is sort of like the Nigerian prince scam. It's to weed out smart people that knows it is impossible to cover real expenses, yet high enough to entice the stupid.
    – Nelson
    Aug 26, 2019 at 9:27

2 Answers 2

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It is a typical Romance scam. There is a series of the script the scammer will use.

  • Asking for your personal details
  • Asking for your bank account
  • Say they need your send them money to "clear" the bank transfer
  • They have some relative that wants to meet you and you should "buy" them a gift card and send the gift card to them.
  • Scammer may conduct the fake check scam
  • Any ridiculous reason to make you pay and any transaction the person "show" you are all fake. You can bet that some may set up a fake "bank" website(or simply a local website host inside their computer) and log in there to show you how rich they are.

There are countless such story, and you can read of this interesting story for youself.

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    They may also "accidentally" overpay, and ask you to send the extra back (or on to someone else) in a non-refundable manner. Their payment will then bounce days/weeks later.
    – ceejayoz
    Aug 26, 2019 at 16:51
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Potential victims get less suspicious if they are offered money, so that's the bait. However, it's easy to scam people offering them money.

"She" could send you a check of $1,000 (it will clear at first when you deposit it into your bank account), cancel the visit for personal reasons and ask for her money back. You, as a honest fellow wire her the money, and boom the check bounces.

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  • The check bouncing part i had a feeling that would happen
    – andyADD
    Aug 26, 2019 at 19:09
  • Bounce check is consider a crime in many countries. So the check is probably fake/stolen or from another scam victim.
    – mootmoot
    Aug 27, 2019 at 7:53

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