Firstly, I'd like to point out that pen paling and online dating is great fun! You can meet some wonderful people online who may become lifetime friends or even more; and if you're learning any language, it's a great way of using and improving your knowledge of your target language.

However, it is possible that people looking for e-pals, pen pals, pen friends or love online may encounter some problems. By knowing about these potential problems one can try to avoid some of the traps which may await. Therefore, we have put together a few of the most important things anyone looking for any kind of friendship online should consider before adding an address to a site.

Most pen pal or dating websites have a large number of people using their service, and when a large number of people are involved with anything, not everyone is going to be either honest or nice. Some people visiting pen pal or Dating sites do so in order to find people to try to scam. Please be aware that many scams on the internet do exist. Most scams involve people asking for money or saying they have large sums of money that they wish to invest or that they need a bank account to transfer the money to. Here's a recent example of one such scam run by a Nigerian. Our advice is to avoid anything that looks in any way similar and immediately delete the message.  

Because of this sort of thing, we offer the following warning or guidelines to consider before placing your details on the internet.

1. When placing an ad consider using a free email address service, especially for pen pals. Doing so protects your own email address and your personal information. High quality pen pal or dating websites usually provide such a FREE email address service. We do!

2. When composing your ad, give only general information about yourself.

3. When you start getting responses to your ad use extreme caution whenever someone brings up the subject of money. Anytime someone on the internet starts talking about money be very suspicious. However, plausible people might be:  NEVER GIVE ANYONE YOUR BANKING ACCOUNT NUMBERS, SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, DRIVER’S LICENSE NUMBER, HOME ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER OR CREDIT CARD NUMBERS!

ADDENDUM-1

1. Think very carefully before arranging to meet anyone in person, you have met online.
2. Finally, should you receive an email from someone asking for money you may want to consider contacting the authorities. The people sending out this kind of email are criminals.

If you follow these guidelines, pen palling and online dating will be great fun!

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