Being safe and staying safe is your number one job! You are meeting complete strangers and unfortunately, some people are not who they represent themselves to be.
You must be conscious, alert and pro-active at all times. Here are my Top 10 Tips For Staying Safe when you date on the Net.
1. Get a completely new web e-mail account on Yahoo.com or Hotmail.com just for dating. Do not use your existing email account because doing so could allow someone to trace you if they wanted to find out who and where you are. Yahoo and Hotmail do not require complete personal information to set up accounts.
2. Get a telephone voicemail account or a pager. Instead of your home, office or cell phone numbers, give out that special dating number to prospective dates.
3. Do not give out your home or business address, or make reference to your home neighborhood. Never allow anyone to pick you up at your home or office, and do not pick up anyone at his or her home or office.
4. Before you make a plan to meet face-to-face for the first time, be sure you have important information about him or her in addition to the information on the standard profile you fill out (phone numbers, business information, friends/co-workers/neighbors, etc.). Call the number(s) to be sure they are real and valid.
5. Meet during the day in a very busy, public place and in a neighborhood not close to your home or office.
6. Always tell a friend or two that you are going to meet someone you have been corresponding with on the Internet. Tell your friend who you are meeting, where you are meeting, the time and when you expect to return home.
7. Take along a cell phone and have friends call periodically.
8. Park your car down the street, never in an adjacent parking lot or on the street in front of the designated meeting place. If you are taking a bus, train, the Tube or Metro or other public transportation, be sure you are not followed when you enter those vehicles after the meeting.
9. Do not allow anyone to walk you to your car. Tell them you have other shopping to do in the mall or in a nearby store. Be sure they leave the area before you go to your car.
10. If at any time something doesn’t feel right, or you start to feel uneasy, uncomfortable or in any danger, change the situation until you feel safe, including ending the meeting.
Ensure your safety first, above all else! Only you can make you feel safe.
Until next time remember,
Only YOU can make it Happen!
