Online lovers, offline scammers

Social engineering scams are all the rage, a point worth noting today of all days.

A Kiwi farmer literally lost the farm to a scammer he met and fell for online. 

Reading the original TVNZ news report (no longer online), this was evidently a classic advance fee fraud or 419 scam that cost him a stunning $1.25m. 

This is not the first time I've heard about victims being drawn-in by the scammers to the extent that they refuse to accept that they have been duped when it is pointed out to them. There's probably something in the biology of our brains that leads us astray - some sort of emotional hijack going on, bypassing the normal rational thought processes.

On a more positive note, the risks associated with online dating are reasonably well known and relatively straightforward to counter. And old-school offline dating is not risk-free either. 

Relationships generally are a minefield ... but tread carefully and amazing things can happen. Be careful (safe hex, remember), be lucky.