I met my wife online (we didnt marry online :P) but she was the second filipina I knew, the first would ask for money constantly due to a new tragedy every few days, but it was always an amount like £500 and I knew I was being scammed, I used to joke about it with my now wife who also knew the person concerned, but I can see how it might seem genuine. I once saw a youtube video of some guy ranting about Filipinas and was saying he owned some website that was like a support group for men who'd been ripped off by Filipinas, he said their most recent guy lost $700usd, but the guy before that was $7000. The guy was pretty jaded towards Filipinos I think but he did offer one bit of advice which I think is crucial: Never send money to somoene you havent ever met.
Ok, I broke the guys one bit of good advice myself, I sent my now wife money before I met her - not huge amounts, and she never asked for it but I knew she needed it, it did cross my mind that she could be a genius scammer who'd lured me into offering money, but she seemed genuine and I took a leap of faith and got lucky, if it was another girl it could've just as easily I know seemed real and I could've been scammed as you were.
As for the first filipina who did try to scam me, even now I wonder if one of her stories might have been true, and my wife and I are still friendly with her-say hi on facebook etc. I think the problem is if you are using chat rooms etc-thats where scammers hang out, regardless of nationality-online really isnt financially safe, even job recruitment sites are filled up with fake employers trying to scam people out of thier hard earned cash, my advice would be that if you want to meet nice Filipinos you're better off going to the Philippines and meeting them there rather than online where you dont even know if the person you are talking to is who they say they are.
I know online dating is equally difficult for girls for different reasons, men may have to dodge the occasional scammer, but my wife said she'd chatted with dozens of men before me and I was the first one who didnt either expose myself or try to get her to expose herself within the first few converstaions. Its a sick virtual-world out there, I think because people can convince themselves its not quite real if its just on the net, so they can behave in a way they wouldnt normally to either extract money or their pervert desires on the person on the other keyboard.
