Chess.com users should be REQUIRED to use REAL NAMES.

It's even dumber ppl believe he fell for it

P.P.Barnum once said "A sucker is born every minute" 

He was right

Over the past few months I have been having an on going conversations with several people from southeast Asia.  There attention was kind and fun at first, I welcomed the friendly banter and looked forward to seeing their messages in my inbox.  Over a period of weeks and hundreds of messages we got to know each other quite well.  As a fairly well off individual myself when one began to discuss some personal family problems I happily agreed to help them a little financially.  I guess they saw me for the sucker I was and over a few months I wound up sending over 20 bitcoins to in total to three different individuals.  Only now I realize when I was left standing at Boryspil airport waiting for one of my friends to come visit on a plane ticket that I had paid for that I have been scammed!  I meet these “ladies” on chess.com and I think we need a policy here that forces people to be under their true legal name.  This would prevent the sort of fake people I have been dealing with from existing and keep the out of control children in line and perhaps we could report them to their parents.  We need a “VERIFIED” tag next to user names like Twitter so we know who we can trust and their true ages and locations.  Anonymity of the internet is horrible.  Send no one bitcoins!  Keep the children here responsible.

Wait, somebody didn't explain this to you properly, you got it all backwards.

FIRST you have to spend the money.
THEN you get to know them intimately.

Otherwise how would they know that you're going to hold up on your part of the deal.

Over the past few months I have been having an on going conversations with several people from southeast Asia.  There attention was kind and fun at first, I welcomed the friendly banter and looked forward to seeing their messages in my inbox.  Over a period of weeks and hundreds of messages we got to know each other quite well.  As a fairly well off individual myself when one began to discuss some personal family problems I happily agreed to help them a little financially.  I guess they saw me for the sucker I was and over a few months I wound up sending over 20 bitcoins to in total to three different individuals.  Only now I realize when I was left standing at Boryspil airport waiting for one of my friends to come visit on a plane ticket that I had paid for that I have been scammed!  I meet these “ladies” on chess.com and I think we need a policy here that forces people to be under their true legal name.  This would prevent the sort of fake people I have been dealing with from existing and keep the out of control children in line and perhaps we could report them to their parents.  We need a “VERIFIED” tag next to user names like Twitter so we know who we can trust and their true ages and locations.  Anonymity of the internet is horrible.  Send no one bitcoins!  Keep the children here responsible.

Walmart man, can you help me? I've recently lost my job and also have a serious injury that requires medical attention. I can't afford to go to the hospital as I am currently living in a van down by the river.

Please help.

Al Czervik

Everyone should just promise not to lie and call it good. 

Btw, its not only you guys that get scammed, we do, too. I started playing some games a few years back with what i thought was another woman and ended up liking her quite a bit! She started off asking me questions about my life and then started asking me personal details that seemed too intimate and made me uncomfortable.

I got really suspicious when she didnt want a great recipe for chocoloate chip cookies that are just like Mrs Fields and confronted her. You guessed it, it was a guy posing as a woman! At least i got to keep my recipe a secret.

Non-anonymity is clearly the solution here: if they knew your real name and address, then half of asia and africa could send you begging letters.