We all get favorites from beyond our local fishing holes, the bulk of which I'd say are scammers.  Seems like within a minute of every single log on, one or two or more favorites will magically appear in my interests.  I ignore 'em and hit the hide button.  Go to your settings and there you can view the list of profiles you've hidden.  So, I paid for premium 25 days ago, and since then I've accumulated 255 favorites from out of state, or out of country.  That's over 10 per day. 108 of those favorites came from other states, 83 from Venezuela, 16 from Columbia, 14 from the Philippines, 8 from the Baltic states, 7 from Canada, and the rest spread out over other south of the border countries, Europe and the UK.  Remarkably only 2 came from Africa which a decade and more ago was a scammers hotbed.  Are there really guys so desperate they'll actually engage with this crap and end up getting fleeced?  There must be or you'd think the scammers would have given up.  

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-- Modified on 1/22/2022 10:20:27 AM

The actual scammers I've encountered on SA lately are all posing as US residents, usually local to me, inviting me to join their sex parties.  Total bs, they just want a credit card number. Many other types of scams also.  But the ones from Venezuela, Philippines. Eastern Europe, etc., simply seem like desperate women living in countries where they have few options for success.  I'm afraid they believe that a rich American man can easily get them into the US if he wants to. (not true). I too receive many, many favorites from these countries.  But none of them have ever tried working a scam on me. If they actually message me I say I'm only dating locally, not long distance and not traveling.  They disappear, which makes me think they are not scammers trying to work me.

As I noted, within less than a minute of logging on favs materialize.  You can sit and watch it happen.  That's an algorithm or something that is looking for logins.  How is that a desperate woman as opposed to a scammer?

Could be bots, too.

True dat, as statistics indicate over 50% of all internet activity is created by bots, both good and bad.  Still, I don't see your typical desperate gal as using bots.  I'd suspect nefarious behavior as the primary motivator for bad bots.

Y'all may be right.  But I would have thought they would try to run some scam on me if they were scammers.  Hasn't happened, hence my post.

Both scenarios are not mutually exclusive. It's quite possible that the desperate women are the people being scammed by some bad actors who offer to create and promote an SB profile for them with some bullshit promise to match them with a rich American.  They may be paying the bot operators a fee for this and of course that fee will never be refunded.  

 
The woman provides pics and some basic info. Then the scammers create profiles with bots using the supplied data and pics.  If a POT SD contacts the POT SB, they probably have some scammers writing replies in an effort to extend the scam to the POT SD.  

 
The actual source or reason for the profile doesn't matter for us. As liqq63 points out, these are annoying distractions and should be ignored. I doubt hiding or blocking has any useful impact, as those actions won't hurt whoever is posting the profile, however hiding may help declutter your "Interests" screen.  

 
Life is good

 
The Cat