Online Scammer Impersonates US Colonel

British woman Wendy McKay had been enjoying her romantic online chats with a handsome US colonel deployed to Iraq, but alarm bells started ringing when the "colonel" suddenly needed thousands of dollars sent to Ghana, the Military Times reports. A con man had stolen the real colonel's identity and taken his photographs from a site for military families.

The real colonel says his name and pictures have been used by the fraudster on a number of sites, but there is little he can do to stop it. McKay, who says she is now too wary to use the online dating service again, didn't fall for the scam but contacted US military authorities to try and put the con artist out of business. (More online fraud stories.)