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I hear all the time on adoption search and reunion forums that everyone should be careful when posting personal information because of scammers. It has been my experience, the more information you post, the more help you get. I am sure there are scams because some people are just awful. Have any of you had any personal experiences with people who weren't who they were claiming to be? What do they stand to gain from that?
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Potentially I can see someone saying "hey I have this information I can give you for x amount of money" or take your personal info like birth date and things like that to try and hack your accounts. Sometimes security questions to bypass your password ask about the city you were born in, etc. But I haven't heard much about scams on search and reunion sites. Mostly I hear about scams where women pretend to match with hopeful adoptive parents and ask for money.
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There have been incidents of people claiming to be the adoptee, based on the information posted on a public site. More often than not, the birth parents have very limited information (birth date, birth place, hospital name) and so with that information, which a scammer or conman has obtained from Search and Reunion sites, he or she can pretend to be the adopted person. Also, in situations like these -- it's generally an emotional scam/con. I've heard of very few instances of financial scamming. Because DNA is so easily accessible now, potential matches should always confirm a match via DNA -- for everyone's protection.If a potential match refuses DNA -- that'd be a HUGE red flag.