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One victim is Shelly Cook. She said her bad time started in January when she met"John" online. They became too friendly in couple of weeks and he started sendingher gifts. Meanwhile, Shelly was also taking care of her sick father while she washaving an online affair with John.
 While I was chatting with him online, my father had a sever heart attack which hedid not bear and succumb to death. I cursed John for bringing this bad omen in mylife. Shelly said.
 When John came to know the situation, he took advantage of the situation. He askedabout my Security Code Number, bank information and he seemed to be in knowing of myfinancial information, which gave the doubt of him being  scammer She added.
Shelly said she wanted to warn people who are using online dating service in searchof their soulmates.  Be cautious while meeting people online and never disclose yourfinancial secrets to people. She warned others.
Experts believe that online romance scams are growing exponentially. It is advisableto get registered with only reputed online dating services only so that the risk ofgetting fake profiles will be minimal. A book called  Cyber LoveÂ's Illusions , wasrecently published. There are reports of people being prosecuted and some of themare serving terms in jails.
The online romance scams group is gearing up to expose the scammers. According toonline moderator expert, Smith Kaiser, you can track these scammers in differentways. Â You can trace them by their IP addresses, their fake photographs, poorEnglish, they will not answer you but ask many questions to you, they will misguideyou by giving false contact information etc. etc.Â
Shelly said the scammers would find potential targets on dating sites and then takethem to some other private sites where they have already laid the traps. Anyinformation you put in those sites will be automatically recorded by these scammers,even the passwords.Â
 ThatÂ's how the scammers work. They try their best that they should not be caught inanyway since they project themselves as they are not taking information from usersforcefully but only users who visit their sites are sharing information on theirsites willingly. Kaiser added.
According to Kaiser, even police wonÂ't be able to help online daters from such scamsunless they have concrete proof to nab them. Its upto the daters to take precautionsby avoiding scammersÂ' sites and sharing any financial information with them tosafeguard themselves
