Identifying and avoiding scams

From the course on dating and romance scams. Excerpt.

The scammer will contact you, usually via social media, a dating site you might use, or even via a random email. They’ll be very friendly and interesting, but they’ll try to quickly move from friendship to something more, by professing their love for you.

These sorts of scammers can be surprisingly patient. The fake relationship might continue for weeks, or even a year, before the scammer will suddenly claim they desperately need money to help in a crisis of some kind.