The Dangers of Online Dating

 Death Follows For a First Time Meet In Person Date

Sonia Varaschin was killed because she just wanted to meet someone special online.

This tragedy near Orangeville Canada highlights the risks and dangers of meeting someone online. Even though the killer left a trail of information on Sonia's computer, it was difficult for police to delve through. This is mainly do to the anonymous nature of dating sites, and the ability of stalkers to totally hide on totally free dating sites. In any event, none of this was any help to Sonia herself.

When Sonya chose a site like plentyoffish.com she actually maximized her risks, and I must qualify this.
I am not singling our plentyoffish.com, because other free online dating sites like OKcupid.com fall in the same camp.  These are not the only sites, but are two of the largest sites in this camp. Many of these sites are not even cognizant of the increased risk that they expose their customers to.

The real concern here is that there is no traceability to individual people in a free dating model which inherently increases risk for all members. Here is why.

There are a lot of freaks and perverts out there. These range from well intentioned bumblers to axe murderers. There is a very real chance that someone who appears to be nice in a chat room is not so wonderful in real life, and the most dangerous ones are very clever at hiding their anti-social behavior. Of course the acme of risk resides with people who not only stalk you, but who seek to do you harm. They will take your life without a second thought.

You may wonder why I am singling out free online dating sites, when in fact I am not.
This range of sites also includes facebook.com. So the next time you accept a friend request from someone that you are not sure you know, think again. About the only thing that protects you from stalkers on facebook is that the friend of the friend you are accepting actually knows one of your friends. But if you and your friends are the types that just click on every friend request in some game to get the most friends on their list, then you are setting up people that you cherish in your life to a lot of hurt.

Social networking sites that require some form of payment before allowing communication are inherently safer. Sexual predators stay clear of pay sites because the money is too easy to trace back to them.  It only takes them a few minutes to set up a string of bogus email account on yahoo using a real email account as reference, then set up a bogus email account on gmail using the yahoo account as reference, then delete the original yahoo account.  Now just tie the gmail account to a fictitious email on AOL and it makes it tough to track you.  The really smart stalkers will use a free email account trail crossing providers based in several different countries so that police have to do tons of paperwork to get access to the records.  Once the stalker has a largely untraceable email account on a free service like gmail, then they are free to use it to join all the free communication sites out there.  If they couple this with a disposable cell phone, you are now fully communicating with someone who looks legit, but is untraceable by anyone. They are free to do what they please with you..

So what can be done about it?
Your best bet is to stay off of totally free dating sites. They are very risky.
These are some other common sense tips:
1) Spend a lot of time online communicating before agreeing to meet in real life. Make sure that you use the anonymity features that most dating sites give you and do not let out any contact details to the person – such as where you work, live, or your external email address.
2) When you want to talk to them, then use a disposable cell phone or a private phone service like myprivateline.com.
3) When communicating, keep your bullshit filters set to maximum alert.  Look for inconsistencies. Look for inconsistencies in what they tell you by asking similar questions and making sure that the answers line up consistently. Inconsistent answers are all danger signals. Stalkers usually have more than one potential victim that they are stringing along, and will often confuse details in what they tell each mark.
4) Seek recent photos, and think of some way that you can verify that the photo is recent.
5) Be upfront and tell them that you are being careful. Genuine people will likely applaud your apparent paranoia. You should be prepared to do the same for them. Consider using the public library and use a current newspaper from a different town to keep your location secret.
6) Your first date should be short, a coffee shop rather than a bar, and be in the daytime and short. Do not go home with him or let him take you home. Be upfront and tell him that you have told your friends where you are.
7) Use your camera phone and MMS it to a few friends. Then tell them what you have done that. If they do not like that, then to bad. But now get out right away!

Use your head before you let yourself lose your heart.

Now if I have not totally freaked you out about online dating sites, here is a good resource page, check out the following link:

Online Dating Sites