Carrie Thompson didn't know what she'd find when she decided to give online dating a try, but she definitely didn't expect to be the target of an international scam.

She met a man, wrote back and forth with him, and then started getting requests to exchange money orders for cash — and then he asked for an outright loan. And after a while, it seemed the conversations always turned back to the money.

Once she started doing some digging, she found her situation sounds a lot like the “sweetheart scam" version of the Nigerian scheme that takes all sorts of forms.

She hopes her story will help keep others from falling for a ploy that appears to prey on love to get to your money.

When the tall, not-bad-looking 40-year-old man wrote lines about love, she didn't fall for them. read more