@Lisa, they are a pest!

The funny thing - to me at least - is that this is perhaps the <em>worst</em> place to try and pull off this type of scam. I get people messaging me who say they are American or British (someone asked me what province of the UK I was from, and also said they were from the UK but now lived in Scotland!) and they barely speak the language. They are often learning Chinese, Russian, German, or Spanish. They usually say they are engineers. And the dead wife is a very common ploy. I confess, I often play with them for a while because I figure if I keep them busy, they aren't bothering anyone else.

I posted a discussion like this other day. Lot’s of people has seen my discussion but no comments. It has lots of people doing that. It would be so awesome if Italki could check those profiles and delete them. Some of them are really intense on their messages to some users. That’s sad but the fake profiles are having place on this platform.

I'm no Brad Pitt and I wasn't born yesterday but even I keep getting those at least once a month. No Africans though, all those scam profiles purport to be American women. I just report them and don't give it a second thought.

When your desperate and have a connection to the internet, it's bound to happen. Joey's right, all you can do is always be self aware, and report if necessary.

Those seem to be a problem everywhere. What's unfortunate is that it's nearly impossible (not completely, but you have to have a massive team and wicked AI to pull it off well) as a company on the internet as a kind of social network. It comes with the territory. The best way we can deal with it is report the profile and make Italki aware of the specific fake accounts. I have noticed that they take action on them.