Part of being part of an instant-gratification world is that people seem to forget about the value of background checks. You see these in the news more and more these days – someone gets scammed, hurt, or worse because they trusted someone too much, too quickly.

I understand the reasoning behind it. After all, we’ve become a rather lonely society, where most of our social interactions are done online. There is a veil of social activity, through sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but the reality is that most of the people that talk to each other on social networks rarely have the opportunity to meet in person, whether it be because of distance, social standing, or cost. Or all of the above.

When someone reaches out past the veil of social networks, the pull of the hope of intimacy, friendship, and camaraderie is extremely strong. You hope that the person on the other end isn’t a scam artist, a womanizer, a rapist, a killer. You hope that the person adding you to their friend list is as friendly as they appear, and that you can trust them with your thoughts, your feelings, and ultimately, either your heart, your wallet, or both.

I run into this every so often. Sometimes my guard is up and I’m able to avoid the pull. But sometimes, I’m caught in a moment of weakness.

A while ago, a guy befriended me on one of the social networks. I was visiting his town for a business conference, and he offered to take me to lunch. We were online “friends”, you see, so I accepted his offer. What I should have done was asked a friend to accompany me. That would have been my standard M.O. But I felt that I could trust this person.

Lunch turned into a second, dinner date, and then repeated flirtations online and over the phone. He insisted that he was single, but that was something I could neither confirm nor deny until I visited him on a return visit to his town.

My birthday was coming up, and he and I had spoken about taking a vacation together. New Orleans? South Carolina? Because I knew his funds were limited, I suggested I fly to him instead, and see if I could schedule in some video work while I was there. We found the cheapest flight possible, and booked the flight. He offered to pay for the flight as part of my birthday present (the flights were $89 each way, so I didn’t feel as if I was taking advantage of the situation).

The prior visit had gone well, but certain things that I saw while I was there gave me a feeling that perhaps he was less than truthful about his dating status despite his repeated commentary about his feelings for me. Instead of falling immediately for his “I’ve never felt this way before” and suggestions about possible moves to different cities together, I wanted to know for sure – this was someone, after all, that I was considering dating, albeit long-distance. I’d already made the mistake once of letting someone move into my home before I knew of his mental instability. I wasn’t about to do it again. So I casually mentioned to a mutual acquaintance that he and I were talking about dating seriously.

Of course, this is when I found out that she, according to her, had been his girlfriend since January.

In the conversations that followed, I found out that the guy was not only seeing this mutual acquaintance, but was also sleeping with 2 other women. How lucky was I to have not accepted his physical advances! I had adopted a policy of taking things slow, you see, and this reiterated why THAT had been a good idea.

Off-handedly, I laughed with the mutual friend that I should make him pay for things, as punishment. I also offered to speak with the guy, and suggest that he have a long talk with her, about the nature of their relationship. Somewhere in their conversation, however, she told him about my joke about making him pay for leading me on and being less than truthful. I’m not sure why she told him – wait, that’s incorrect. I’m sure that she told him so as to endear herself to him. If she could “protect” him by telling him I was going to make him pay, then perhaps he would cherish her more than the others and stop chasing other women. A sad tactic, and one that rarely works, but probably what was going on in her mind. He decided to paint me as a gold-digger on the social networks in an attempt to hide his embarrassment. I wish I had known I was one – I would have made me fly first class to a destination that included room service and a view, instead of coach on a discount airline to a home filled with multiple cats and packing boxes!

3 hours before the flight, he emailed me to tell me he thought it wasn’t a good idea for me to visit. If I hadn’t booked work while I was there, that would have been of no consequence. I am able to lick my superficial wounds and call it a day, just be thankful I wasn’t so naive as to fall for his scheme, and thank my gut for speaking up. But you mess with my livelihood, and that brings out a different reaction. My anger was public, and justifiably so.

Luckily, the tickets which he adamantly announced on social networks that he had canceled had not been canceled after all. My guess is that he posted that in an attempt to hide his embarrassment from being publicly called out for being a womanizer. So I did go, and I did work, and I came home. I had an extremely pleasant time with friends that I knew I could trust, because my mental background checks had come back clean. Later, I heard from several other people that the guy had pulled similar things on them. Had I not jumped to trust, I would have saved myself the time and energy wasted on him.

Now that long story (and I don’t post anecdotes that often) was an example of what happens when you don’t conduct a personal background check. I did, eventually, and in enough time to save myself, but not before I was put into an uncomfortable situation. In business, I see scams and deceit all the time. As consumers, especially in a recession, we are inundated with offers to fix our credit, reports of having won monetary awards, and get-rich-quick ideas. We’re also bombarded by less-than-obvious offers through the social networks of products and services that are less than truthful.

If I were to suggest guidelines for consumers in this online age, it would be similar to those I would suggest to anyone looking for love. Do your research. Ask around. Check out online reviews. And most of all, take your time and get to know the company and the product. It’ll save you embarrassment, hurt, and lost money.

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