Why Prepaid? They don’t carry the addresses and name of who owns the phone. This way your home phone and actual address are safe from discovery should things not turn out well and you need to break off the friendship.

Don’t use your whole name, first name only. If you use a dating service, I recommend it there too that you make sure your real information is absolutely confidential and not given out unless you say it is ok. Most online dating services are good about security but I feel it is a point not to be overlooked.

Dating Service Security

Many of the online services do not pre screen their clients so they are not liable for anyone you meet through their sites. Generally you will get the name of someone who you have looked at their profile, or they looked at yours.  Speaking of profiles - be as honest as you can, but no addresses and only a first name.

When you are meeting someone for the first few times you should only meet in a public place and stay  where there are plenty of people until you feel secure enough for more of a relationship.  Singles dating is great, online but caution is the best defence.

Online Dating for Seniors and Baby boomers

Singles dating for seniors and baby boomers is the same for the most part, but the reasons for dating may be different than they are the younger set.

Usually it is just social, looking for friends, nothing permanent. But that can change when people get to know each other. Older people who have been married and are divorced or widowed are by nature more cautious but should still use some of the general guidelines.

Single Parents and Online Dating

If you are at home with a pre school age child, or an at home single parent, chances are you have thought about checking out online dating services for yourself.  Dating isnít an easy feat when you have children at home too.  Your first priority is to your children and their safety and wellbeing.

There are a lot of people on the singles sites who are out there just to find a situation like that to exploit so, you as a parent have to be extra diligent in your choices. A dating site for singles with children would probably be a better stop for you than a regular dating service. You still have to be careful and pay attention to the safety aspect of your personal life though.

Donít tell the  people you meet online all about your home and children until you have a feel for the person.  Maybe even meet them  a couple times only letting them know that yes, you have a child or two but no more information than that.

More Information

• How to Choose a Safe Online Dating Site
• Online Dating… “But he said he knew Simon Cowell!”
• Choosing an Online Dating Service
• Dating safety advice at FlingFinder.com.au

Instant and Effective

In the fast-paced life of people these days, it is no wonder that online dating has become so popular. Given that everyone is so busy they have very little time to socialize. And, that little time they would want to spend in the company of someone they can relate to, instead of wasting on the peripherals involved in real-world dating. Online dating offers the convenience of searching for that ideal someone even before you make introductions. All this groundwork is done by the dating site. All you have to do is to submit a personal profile of yourself to the dating site database. They will match your profile with other users within the same dating database, and inform both parties. Then, it is up to you to start a conversation.

The number of matches made on any dating site depends on the sex ratio, which is generally not perfectly balanced. For instance, there may be fifty-eight percent female members on a particular site as against forty-two percent male while on another site the reverse may be closer to the situation.

Choice of Online Dating Services

You can choose from two types of internet dating services: the “free” dating sites or the pay sites. Obviously, the first type is more popular because you don’t have to pay anything. You can join for free, but as they say, you don’t get something for nothing. Here, you will find the non-serious people who are just messing around to kill time. If you are serious about dating, it’s best to keep away from these free dating sites.

Worse still is the risk of interacting with subscribers who post false identities. The reason why you will face this problem is because these free sites often don’t verify the authenticity of a person’s identification. They don’t have inherent systems of checks and balances, which can easily be done by asking for a credit card. Another danger of these sites is that they attract children and teenagers because they are easily accessible.

Therefore, the best option would be to join a pay site. You pay for the service you receive. These types of dating sites verify the identities of all subscribers before posting their profile. You need to provide credit card information by which they check your identity. If you are serious about finding a relationship, you must go in for this type of dating site.

While choosing the online dating site, remember to ask them how frequently they update their database. You can do that through their “contact” email button. This is important because many online dating services don’t regularly update their databases, which means you might be trying to contact someone who has not logged on for a long time.

Beware of Chat Rooms

Many online dating services don’t have chat rooms, but they provide more effective services to facilitate actual dating. In a way it is better than chatting because chat rooms have no identification verification at all. However, if you enjoy chatting in chat rooms, don’t date someone from a chat room.

Verification by the police

The dating site providers as a group are taking their responsibilities toward subscribers very seriously. ‘Profile verifying’ is the primary protection put in place to ensure the enjoyable experience of service users. In all areas of the human experience there are some unscrupulous individuals who seek to take advantage of others. They pretend to be someone other than who they really are. Verification methods aim to keep the frauds out of chat rooms.

By checking with credit card details the dating sites make sure the people they match together really are the people they say they are. For the user the advice is to make sure their chosen dating site does profile verification.

Reporting suspicious behaviour

The verification of online identity is keeping pace with the growing number of dating site users through the second line defence called ‘reporting’.  If a genuine love surfer spots suspicious behaviour it should be reported to the site controllers who can then track the suspect, build an evidence dossier and bring in the appropriate authorities to deal with the offender.

How to be safe while dating online

As well as reporting suspicious behaviour users should go silent. Cut off any interaction if you feel the person you have been matched with is in any way predatory.

Steady as you go at the outset of any relationship. Good advice in any partnership but especially so with ones begun online. Making inappropriate assumptions and going too quickly can get you hurt. If it’s love at last it last and there will be plenty of time to explore one another.

Guard your personal secrets, especially the financial ones, closely. Never divulge personal information to a person who has not proven him or herself to be worthy of your trust over time. If and when you feel preyed upon whilst online dating, cut off the interaction and report the suspect to your dating service host.

In the first giddy stages of an Internet relationship it can be hard to exercise common sense but gradual, incremental actions will safeguard your emotional wellbeing.

Also if you remain intrigued by a match made over the net after the first introduction you should, at the earliest opportunity, ask for a photo. It’s a test of how genuine a prospective lover is as well as a good stepping-stone to a face-to-face encounter. Refusal to give a photo should be a strong warning sign of insincerity at best.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the Internet or a singles bar the advice to love seekers in the early days of an interaction is to take your time, be careful, be guarded and be wise and above all be safe.