Some significant signs that most likely you are corresponding with scammer:
1) too many words of endearment such as 'dear', 'love' and/or similar words in each and every letter
2) extreme emphasise made one on 'being lonely' and on 'honesty'
3) letters arrive regularly
4) your questions are mostly unanswered, written in very brief and not in the main body of a letter
5) almost each and every letter accompanied with new photo. They become more and more revealing and even more attractive than in the beginning of the correspondence
6) frequent reference to finance and money matters. Usually request for a particular amount of USD or Euros for passport, visa, ticket etc. Though it varies: it might sound like a decent complaint about a relative or child's health and urgent necessity to buy expensive medication or undertake a costly operation
7) repeately sent letters about 'I wish to meet you as soon as possible', sweet expectations on a happy future married life, with detailed promises of being loving, committed.
How to identify scammers: Example
For example one of our clients who began to receive unsolicited letters from a so-called girl (who happened to be just a scammer) from a online marriage agencies, he almost fell prey to those scamming letters of false promises. The first letter was general and rather polite relating that 'she' was very lonely and would love to find man of her dreams. Emphasis was made on Loneliness.
The second and third letters were more of a private nature, containing attachments - photos of young 24 y.o. beautiful, blonde girl (while scammers usually are young males, remember that!) and mentioned many times that it is impossible to find a deserving decent man in her small town and that age and race is of no importance for her. That the 'heart' and honesty is the only matter s which count. Yes, scammers love to emphasise on honesty and truth in order to gain more attention and trust.
From the fourth letter onwards each one contained numerous 'dear', 'lovely', 'miss you' and talks about love, dreams etc.
Each letter was accompanied with photo/s (even though he did not request any). She told him that she owned a flat, intending to sell it in order to buy property in his country (or they could buy a better house for their future as they were going to have lovely children and would need more space): She said that she is hardworking and don't want to stay at home, she would prefer to work and make her contribution to the family budget. And so on, and so on.
After about 2 weeks of regular correspondance (remember, scammer can send more than 2 thousands emails per day to her potential victims), the scammer talked about 'her' relatives, sent photos with false 'grandmother and grandfather'! Now and again complaints about life there (which normal real woman will never do!) and pressurising for sending invitation and beginning of preparation of travel arrangements.
From these, one can easily recognise a scam - this internet fraud: scammer was pressing hard, few times in each and every letter, to get all necessary information, to send money (the exact sum was specified - this amount for passport, this - for visa, and this- the largest sum - for ticket).
To sound more authentic, the scammer gave a false phone number of a tour agency in her town who would arrange everything for her. Our client specially phoned there - somebody replied in English and confirmed that such-and-such really applied for visa and her documentations are not in the process, as the payment should be done first. It is again plan of the scam - if scammer acts alone by himself only, then he would give cell number and he himself will answer. If the scammer is in a scammers group, then they could even rent a flat with a landline phone number & fax, and a full-time English speaking person would reply to calls of future victims. To find out whether this is true or not, is easy - find out the name of this 'agency', get the phone number of the home affairs in that town and find out from them whether such agency exist, and if yes, what is their real phone number.