Dating Date from Hell

A Date? Or Was It The Date From Hell!

Sonia Varaschin died at the hands of someone that she met on plentyoffish.com.

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.

In choosing a free dating site like plentyoffish.com, the victim unwittingly maximized her risks. Let me qualify this statement.
I am not singling out 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 problem here is that any site that allows two people to communicate in any way for free is dangerous. 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. The epitome of dangerous people are axe murdering predators. They will take your life without a second thought.

Free dating sites are not the only sites where you can expose yourself to danger.
Other social networking sites like facebook also have this problem. You may think that it is safe to accept a friend request from the friend of a friend – after all you trust your friends. But in fact, your friend may very well be the type of person who always accepts friend requests without actually knowing the person. You are not safe unless you know which of your friends would never accept friend requests from unknown people.

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.  On the other hand, it only takes them a small amount of time to set up a string of bogus email account on yahoo ,then set up a fake email account on GMail ,then erase the initial yahoo account.  At that point you can now go into the GMail account and point the base email account to some fictitious email account on AOL, and you have pretty much left a tough trail for police to track.  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?
For starters, stay clear of free dating sites. They  increase your exposure to danger to unacceptable levels.
These next tips are just common sense details:
1) Make sure that you talk online a long time before committing to meeting the person in real life. Keep all details about who you really are or where you live private until you know them better.
2) At the point where you want to hear their voice, use an untraceable cell phone or myprivateline.com.
3) Before you commit your heart, make sure you are doing due diligence on this person. Be careful with what you say, and listen carefully to what is said. Consider recording the call so you can take notes after.  Look for changes in the lines that they string you. Ask for the same information a few different ways over the course of your initial acquaintance and make sure the answers are consistent. 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) Get recent pictures of them. How can you be sure they are recent? Well to be really sure, get them to take a close-up picture of themselves holding up today's paper.
5) Be upfront and tell them that you are being careful. If they are honest and aboveboard, then they will not take offence and will comply. You must also be willing to do the same. 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 to take a picture of your date and send it to a friend while you are on the date, just in case something happens. If they have a problem with you doing this, then get out yesterday!

Use your head before you let yourself lose your heart.

Now for a good resource to find sites where men have to pay to contact you, check out the following link:

Online Dating Sites