I’ve worked with many taken advantage of by scammers impersonating soldiers. Each scam has its unique attributes, but there are some common themes.

1. How To Know A Military Scammer
2. Can Military Use Dating Sites
3. Military Pictures Used By Scammers
4. How To Spot A Military Scammer

It was created specifically to warn people and spread information about these scams. The page is Military Romance Scams and has over forty-four thousand likes. There are even entire task forces arranged by the US government to crack down on these crimes. How does it work? These scams are fairly straightforward. Jun 18, 2010 If you’re interested in learning more about military dating scams, check out my new site dedicated to the topic. About Stacey Abler Stacey's husband joined the Army in 2003 and was medically retired after four deployments. Jul 10, 2018 It’s a big problem: reports to the FBI about online romance scams tripled between 2012 and 2016, and imposter scams were among the top reports to the Federal Trade Commission for both the general population and the military community. These scams can take a military angle with imposters stealing servicemembers’ photos to create phony profiles. Military Romance Scam: Scammers Use Military Men’s Pictures to Scam Their Victims Posted March 26, 2021 by Ashley Mae Orcutt Imagine going onto a dating app and meeting someone online that you really connect with. You talk to this same person for a year and get to know more and more about them as you sta Read More. Jul 15, 2015 Not everyone using online dating sites is looking for love. Scammers create fake online profiles using photos of other people — even stolen pictures of real military personnel. They profess their love quickly. And they tug at your heartstrings with made-up stories about how they need money — for emergencies, hospital bills, or travel.

If you run across any of these elements with the person you met online claiming to be a soldier, there is no question you are dealing with a scammer. None.

You’re welcome to message me to chat about your situation. But if the signs below are present, my answer will be the same as what I’m telling you in this article – it’s a scam.

Let’s dive in and look at each of the most common signs of a romance scam.

He’s on a Peacekeeping Mission

I’m not sure why this is such a popular excuse to use why they are deployed in another country, but this comes up often.

Granted, my husband served in the military as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were going strong. Still, I have never heard a real soldier refer to his deployment as a peacekeeping mission.

It’s just not common terminology in the military. Though if I based it solely on the people who have found themselves involved with a scammer, you would think peacekeeping missions are the only reason any of our military ever leaves the country.

They may also say they’re on a peacekeeping mission with the U.N. in what is usually a war-torn country, but he’s in the U.S. military. Negative.

It’s definitely a red flag.

He’s in a Country You Haven’t Heard of Us Officially Being In

We have soldiers deployed to various regions and countries around the globe. With most, you can easily learn we have a presence in that country with a simple Google search.

You will hear references to many countries in various news stories about our actions or, sadly, when a soldier is killed.

If you do not hear that we’re in that country from very public sources, the person is full of it.

Do we currently have soldiers in countries that the general public isn’t aware of? Absolutely.

But here’s the deal. The soldiers deployed somewhere like that aren’t allowed to tell their spouse where they are, much less a random person they met online.

Those missions and deployments are generally classified. And any real soldier would quickly find himself on the first plane back to the U.S. in some serious trouble for divulging their location. If he’s truly in Syria, he can’t tell you he’s in Syria.

My husband was in special operations. At the time he was in, we weren’t even able to tell anyone he deployed. I wasn’t allowed to know exactly where he was or when he was coming home. Our conversations were monitored to make sure there weren’t any slips.

So the chance that a soldier would volunteer he’s currently chatting with you from Syria is none to none.

The other country often used is Nigeria. As many of these scammers are actually located in Nigeria, he may be telling the truth. But he’s not in Nigeria with the U.S. military.

He’s on a Top Secret Mission

Ok, let’s think about this. Does he volunteer that he’s on a top-secret mission? There is no conversation between the soldier and his closest confidantes if he’s on a “top secret mission” and certainly not with someone he met online.

The very idea of a top-secret anything is that it remains a secret. They aren’t allowed to speak of it. There are serious legal consequences to leaking information that is classified, which a top-secret mission would be.

If someone tells you this, end the conversation. He’s lying.

He Needs You To Talk To His Commander

This has always been one of my favorites because it’s so ridiculous. Sad but true, when you are involved with a soldier but not yet married, you are basically invisible to the military.

You’re not a consideration if you’re not married, and some would argue being married to him doesn’t even help.

Commanders or higher-ranking officers do not have time to chat with and vet the person a soldier met online while he’s deployed. There’s no interest in it and no benefit to it. Quite frankly, they have better things to do with their time.

There is no reason for you to talk to his commander. He doesn’t need permission from his commander to speak with you, email you, or call you.

No matter how official sounding the title may be, you are not communicating with a high-ranking officer in the United States military.

He Needs You To Fill Out Fiancee Paperwork

This is generally used in conjunction with the scam above about needing to speak to his commander.

In this instance, he will inform you to speak to each other on the phone, continue communicating online, or even get engaged; you need to complete paperwork.

There is no such thing as this paperwork in the real world of the military. Again, the military doesn’t care if you exist until you’re married. And then the only official paperwork on you is what you have to do to get your military ID made AFTER you get married.

He will tell you that you can’t get engaged until you have completed this paperwork. He may even tell you that you need to complete the fiancee paperwork to be eligible for his benefits or him to send money to you.

Typically, this form appears to come from a higher-ranking officer and has specific instructions to follow. This includes a processing fee for the form. In some cases, they may tell you the fee is to enable him to return home.

The paperwork will usually appear on watermarked paper with the logo of that particular branch of service (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, etc.). The grammatical errors within the form are generally laughable.

All fake.

He Refuses to Provide His Military Email Address

Every soldier is assigned a military email address. This email address ends in mail.mil. His official military email address will not be Gmail, Yahoo, or anything similar. It also won’t end in usa.com. If it doesn’t end in mail.mil, it’s not an official military email address.

There is NO reason why he can’t share this with you. After all, it’s just an email.

It’s not top-secret, he doesn’t have to get permission from his commander, and there is no security risk to him providing it to you.

If he can’t provide it to you, he’s a scammer. Period.

It is always funny to me when someone says he can’t share his email address but then sends me a picture of what is supposedly his military ID. His email address is a lot less sensitive than his military ID.

If he refuses to provide his email address, cut communication.

Even if he provides it, you must try to send an email to it by starting a new email. Do not reply to the email he sent to you, even if it looks like it came from a mail.mil email address.

Does it bounce back when you try to send it? Is he able to reply to you from the mail.mil email address with your original email intact?

Every single person who suspected they were involved in a scam and has ever tried this found the email address the person gave was fake.

He Asks For Money

This is the biggest clue of all. A real soldier is not going to meet someone online and then ask for money. And certainly won’t do it with some made-up story as to why he needs it.

Asking for money can occur in multiple ways.

He could ask for an iTunes gift card.

He could ask you to pay for his flight home from his deployment.

He could ask you to cash the check he’s sending to you and send the money to him.

He could ask you to send him money via Western Union.

He could tell you that you have to pay a fee to continue communicating with each other.

How To Know A Military Scammer

He could give you a sob story about how his child needs medical care, and he doesn’t have access to his bank account.

Regardless of how it happens, if he asks you to spend money on anything, it’s a scam.

Scammers are working on multiple victims at once, and it may be anywhere from a few days to a few months before the topic of money comes up. Regardless of when it may, it’s always a scam.

Some have insisted he’s real because they have been talking for six months, and this is the first time he’s asking for money. It doesn’t matter when he asks.

If you honor any of these requests, the next ask for money will only get larger. They will play on your sympathy and good heart to try to get you to part with your money.

Trust your gut. If there’s even a small part of you that thinks it may be a scam, it probably is.

These are the biggest signs that you are dealing with a scammer. If the soldier you met online sounds similar, cut communication. Then, check out this article about what to do if you are involved in a scam.

If you have questions about a situation you’re in with a soldier you met online, reach out to me.

The U.S. has the most robust and powerful military in the world, and though its fighting men and women can win wars, they often appear defenseless against popular online scams.

“[In] the military you have a young population on the web. They get caught up on these Internet scams, specifically targeted to them,” said Holly Petraeus, director of the Better Business Bureau’s military line and the wife of Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Service members are targeted by websites that claim to offer special military discounts on everything from cars to apartments for rent. But the low-priced car never arrives and the easy-to-find apartment they've rented is already occupied.

Similarly, scammers are profiting off of U.S. civilians under the same guise of patriotism, Christopher Grey, spokesman for the U.S. Army criminal investigators, said. In the past year there has been a surge of criminals posing as military members on online dating sites, forming relationships with women and ultimately asking for money.

Can Military Use Dating Sites

Scammers prey on the victims’ “kindness, patriotism and (sometimes) romance,” which compromises the good name of the military, Grey explained.

“It’s especially despicable it’s directed at our service members at a time they’ve been risking their lives for us overseas for several years,” Petraeus said. “To have somebody pick their pocket here at home is completely unacceptable.”

Unacceptable ... but often un-prosecutable.

“The majority of these scam artists come from African countries ... from Ghana, Nigeria,” Grey explained. They set up a scam, work in a cyber café, and then move.”

“They can take their website down and open up another one the next day.” Petraeus said.

When the U.S Army Criminal Investigators Office becomes aware of an online military scam, they have to hand the case over to the country where the crime is committed, Grey said.

“It’s very difficult to track these people down so we feel prevention is the cure.”

Following are some of the most common military Internet scams, according to Grey and Petraeus:

Online Dating Scams: These are the latest and most popular to hit the web. Scammers, usually out of Ghana or Nigeria steal identities of real soldiers on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace and pose as military members. Others create identities off of British military members. After posting pictures and stories to popular dating sites, the scammers contact women. “They [build] up a huge story about who they are, they are heroes and serving the country,” Grey said. “People fall for the ploy, and some people are sending them money.” Scammers ask for everything from laptop computers to money for airfare so they can fly back to the U.S. and visit the victims, most of whom are women. “They are very poetic, they are very savvy,” Grey said. “Luring these women in and they take them for their money.” Victims have been cheated out of up to $23,000. Grey cited one case where a woman took out a second mortgage on her home to finance her romantic interest overseas.

Protest Scams: Not every online military scam is created for financial gain. Some scammers are contacting the families of military members by phone or email and making false claims that their son or daughter is injured or wounded overseas. Grey says they sometimes ask for money for medical bills, but usually they are only contacting the family to scare them as an anti-war protest.

Craigslist Car Scam: Scammers are taking to Craigslist, offering too-good-to-be-true discounts on cars for military personnel. In some cases, the scammers claim they are military members about to be deployed and need to sell a vehicle fast. Similarly, others offer military members a special discount for serving their country. More disturbingly, the scammers are offering low-priced vehicles because a U.S. military member who died in combat owned the vehicle and the family wants to get rid of it fast. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) says scams like these usually require a wire transfer and promise free shipping. The description of the cars is lifted from auto sites, and typically you can Google the vehicle ID number, to determine whether it’s a real deal or a hoax.

Military Loan Scams: Military members who have less than perfect credit are becoming victims of flashy offers that typically promise 'up to 40% of your monthly take home pay,' 'same day cash,' 'no credit check,' 'all ranks approved.' But these offers often up with sky-high interest rates that do more harm than good for military members. The BBB says that this scam involves the entire family of military members, so it can do years of damage to their financial security.

Military Pictures Used By Scammers

Terrorist Capture Scam: Some scammers claim to be military members fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan and who are faced with a tough decision -- they have either gained access to Saddam Hussein’s secret fortune or have captured Usama bin Laden, and need your help. This scam preys on U.S. civilians who are looking to fight justice and maybe earn a little money in the process. Scammers say they have come across millions of dollars of Hussein’s secret fortune but need a monetary advance in order to gain access to the money, and will give you a dividend when the cash is obtained. The BBB says that even though Saddam is dead, people are apt to believe that his wealth is still circulating somewhere out there. Other scammers claim they have captured bid Laden but need money to transport him, so that they can turn him over to authorities.

Housing Scams: Due to the nature of military service, those who serve and their families are forced to move from base to base around the country. Though the military often provides housing, some members are responsible for finding their own living arrangements, which scammers are fully aware of. Scammers go to Craigslist to target areas where they know military members will need housing. They lift the descriptions of legitimate rental properties and rewrite the post so it offers a special discount for military members. Depicting a too-good-to-be-true offer, they ask for a security deposit to be wired in advance to ensure their occupancy. But often, the individual or family arrives at the rental property only to find it already occupied.

How To Spot A Military Scammer

The BBB outlines several tips to protect yourself from becoming a victim of military scams:

-- Always research a company with the BBB before you hand over any money or personal information.

-- Be sure keep your computer protected by installing updated anti-virus software.

-- Observe the golden rule of avoiding scams: if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If you have found yourself a victim of a scam, you can file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission or the FBI at www.ic3.gov.