Poet John Donne once said that “no man is an island”, meaning that people need to have connections with other people to function correctly. Even though he was born in the 16th Century, we was clearly a forward-thinker. People need to meet people, to talk to people and to form relationships with people, which is why online dating has took off so successfully. Unfortunately not all of the people using sites like match.com want the same kind of connection as everyone else and sadly many people are becoming more and more aware that they need to be very vigilant, to avoid falling for the true love - fake lover syndrome .Suzanne Hardiman wasn't an island and had no intention of becoming one. She was, however, a lonely 58-year old divorcee looking for a fresh start in life. After 29 years of marriage, Suzanne found herself looking for love. Unfortunately, although Suzanne wasn't to know at the time, she was looking for it in all the wrong places. The wrong place didn't feel like one, I'm fact it seemed like the best place for Suzanne and millions of other people around the world to find love. That place was www match dot com. It’s the world’s largest online dating site, so what better place to start your search. Wrong!Suzanne had lived a life but she was naive when it came to finding love online. After registering and paying her subscription, Suzanne uploaded her picture, wrote her profile and started her search. One man in particular soon caught her eye. His name was James Richards, a 48 year-old, American-born construction worker now living in Portsmouth. His photo’s were easy on the eye and ticked every box on Suzanne’s wish list. She immediately sent him a ‘wink’, match dot com’s way of initiating contact with people you like the look of. To Suzanne’s astonishment, her ‘wink’ was returned. Over the coming weeks Suzanne and James settled into a mutually effusive cavalcade of messages. First their messages were contained within the site, but they were soon conversing externally, both through email and on the telephone. They came to the realisation that they had a number of things in common. Suzanne shared that she was an only child and had recently lost her parents. As it turned out, so had James. With every interaction they were falling for each other more and more, as was evident by James’ emails, which were becoming more exuberant with every passing day. Suzanne loved them and why shouldn't she. Who doesn't love a man who wears his heart so firmly on his sleeve. James’ messages were full of love but they soon started to share his frustrations. Not with Suzanne, but with the problems he was having trying to release the huge sum of money he was to inherit from his late father’s estate. The money, all £895,000 of it, was tied up in a bureaucratic knot in India. Every way he turned he was thwarted by the system. He only need £700. After tiptoeing around the subject for a few days he finally reached his last option. Suzanne! After mulling it over for a couple of days, she finally relented and promised to send him it. As you would expect, you can’t just pay the money directly, it has to go via the solicitor who is handling the matter. James’ solicitor was based in Manchester and it has him, Rod Thompson, who would contact Suzanne to handle the transfer. Like most people in those circumstances, Suzanne was a little suspicious. She ‘Googled’ the Solicitor and found a very real website for a very real company. Problem solved. Whilst the company was real, the guy she was dealing with wasn't, at least he didn't really work there, but it was always him contacting Suzanne, so sadly this never came to light.Once the process had started, the initial £700 James needed soon grew. There was no end of unexpected legal obstacles that needed to be overcome before James could get his hands on the money. Thankfully, his solicitor was always on hand to send Suzanne copies of the very official looking documentation. In a matter of weeks, Suzanne had transferred £174,000. Almost all of the money she had. In fact it was only once she’d exhausted her funds, that this scam came to light. When the money disappeared, so did James. It was only when his solicitor asked for another £10,000 to go to South Africa to track him down did Suzanne’s world, islands and all, come crashing down. She realised she’d been a victim of a scam. Sadly, she wasn’t alone. After going to the police, many more people - men and women - came forward with similar stories. All were victims of scams on the world’s largest online dating sites. Thankfully the story has a happy ending. The UK-based con men were all brought to justice, but that was a little too late for Suzanne.Suzanne’s first mistake was an easy one to make. Thousands of people make it every day. They join the largest dating sites without thinking about how they work. There are no controls of those who join the site. No one checks that they are who they say you are. No one verifies they look like the photo they upload. This lack of concern costs thousands of people every day. Maybe not to the degree it cost Suzanne and maybe the cost isn’t always financial, but there’s a cost. Perhaps it costs you time as you waste hours looking for potential partners in the vain hope they still look like their 20-year old photograph.We've all been there, but we haven’t all been to www.matchmakersdating.co.uk Matchmakers is an exclusive personal introductions site for over the 25s. At Matchmakers we take no chances on your privacy, safety or data. We personally interview everyone who wants to join the site to make sure they’re for real. Their ID is checked and photographs vetted. The data is then held securely offline and matches are determined by our specialist team based on our meetings. We’ll get to know you, your hopes, your dreams and expectations so we can all be confident that when you do meet that special one, it’s special for all the right reasons. Why not join today?