I am a rookie user on italki. At the moment I became a memeber on italki, Iwas very excited to strart converstaions with native English speakers. So I searched language partners who were native English speakers and thoese were willing to learn Chinese. I was very active to chat with others but I was astonished that people seemed not interested in chatting with me. I didn't say anything that was offensive or bad and I even didn't know what was wrong. But now, I may get to know what's going on. I acted too passionate, I guess.
A couple of days ago, I received a message from a man who was from USA(according to his profile) and he was learning Chinese.He was talkative and asked me this and that. We chatted a while and exchanged Wechat and Skype ID for more convenient and smooth conversations. The belowing is what he told me:
"Okay, I lost my wife 4 years ago on her birthday, she got knocked down by a moving vehicle. I have a daughter who studies in the UK, she is 16 years old."
And yesterday, a dramatical event just took place. Another American guy, who was also at the same age as the previous one, was telling me the same story. He also lost his wife on her birthday 4 years ago and his wife got knocked down by a moving vehicle as well. and this guy has a 14 years old son who was studying in UK. The point is they didn't only share almost the same story but also the sentences were constructed the same. How come is it possible? Then I realized that I possibly came aross professional cheaters.I was curious
about the cheater's following movements and how was he going to cheat. Therefore, I pretended not noticing anything and kept typing to him.
He became more chatty and told me he was an American soilder who was on undercovered mission in Afghanistan. His previous computer was hackd by Taliban terrorists. He requested me not to add any foreign soilders as they were probably Taliban terroists. He also asked about my marital status and I told him that I am married and have a very happy family. Then he kept saying about all the merits he has and how wonderful he was and he was planning to make investment in China. He made him the perfect man on earth. I started to understand the way he was cheating.
I searched information about American soilders cheating on internet and I was surprised that many Chinese people had the same experiences, the same story, the same trick. Some of them were even cheated for a great deal of money. They uploaded the cheaters' photos on line and I just recognized one was on my italki.
One more thing I want to say is that their English didn't sound like real native speaker's .As the conversation goes on, you will notice that they make lots of grammar and structure mistakes even though my English isn't that good but still be able to identify that.
How many of you on italki had the same experiences? How did you distinguish them?How did you handle this situation? Is there anyway to report?
