I like the local newspaper idea. I recently backed out of an eBay purchase that felt suspicious when the seller refused to send me a picture of the item with today's newspaper in shot.
Roaming-on has had bad experiences in the past, while we might worry about meeting a scammer online, she legitimately worries about that too. It does not always have to be the case that scammers are from the Philippines and honest people are from the UK or Europe or the USA, they can equally well be from any of them, even though many of us might see that as unlikely.
I think the question is: "are they in the country they claim to be in?" and if they only engage in Skype chat without video, what else are they hiding? Maybe sitting in an Internet cafe in Nigeria with a couple of dozen other scammers?
I know all about one bad experience roaming-on has had, the Nigerian pretending to be something he wasn't, I think the point to make is that if you doubt anyone in the slightest then it is time to move on to someone else, plenty more fish and all that.
If someone is camera shy on Skype then they have something to hide, once again, time to move on, could be a legitimate excuse but its unlikely.
Yeah they do, me I am a big overweight ugly guy who really does not want to have to look at a tiny little picture of himself on a phone or a computer, me I hate skype now, I used to love it but time and circumstances have ruined it for me, I would far rather most conversations were by voice, have I got anything to hide, yes, me, is there anything suspicious going on, no, nothing. Yes I agree with you that in the early stages of talking there are not so many reasons to be camera shy, later on in a relationship, say ten years later when you know you are being checked on, as if you might be, or are, doing something wrong, well yes there are loads of reasons not least of which is the implied lack of trust!
I think the key word is trust, trust has to be earned. As you say, once a relationship reaches a certain point then Skype using just voice is more than acceptable, for a new relationship though, video is a must as you know, you can learn a lot from peoples expressions
Look how we take Skype and other video messaging services for granted, without them none of us would be here talking about our Filipino experiences No Skype no British Filipino, no Skype less non EU spouse immigration, maybe the British Government will ban Skype to get their immigration figures down
Without the Internet, many of us would not have married Filipinas. Without the Internet, I would never have gotten a passport, not have been to Russia (4 times) USA (once) Latvia (once) Turkey (twice) Philippines (3 times) all to meet ladies I hasten to add and certainly would never have got married.
Wow you are far better travelled than me mate, really wow, well done! A lot of you guys are much more travelled than me, my history is boring just back and forward, back and forward, UK - Philippines, UK - Philippines, that's pretty much it everything else has been business and fairly limited at that!
I did not start travelling until I was 54 and it took 10 years to find someone to marry! I do things rather slowly
