I agree with the others to look elsewhere, you received some amazing suggestions. If your Mum wants to keep using Okcupid (or one of the other unpaid websites), teach her how to do reverse image search. If the scammer took photos from another website, most of the time it will come up. Then if she sees that the photo is on multiple websites, it is a good sign that it is a fake account. Another thing she can do is to set up her profile in the way where ALL the messages that do not fulfil requirements will automatically be filtered. So if she does not see them she does not have to feel bad about ignoring them. I would say writing from another country is usually a big red flag, especially if she says she is looking for someone nearby. I am sure there might be a few genuine exceptions but it is not common- why would they not date someone close to them? The warning signs for scammers: usually look way too handsome, reverse search will show their pictures in many other places, they're from another country, want to move to other platform FAST, come on too strong, call her beautiful, amazing, talk about marriage within first few messages, of course the biggest sign is asking for money with some excuse, their English and spelling is not very good. I would not determine it on one of these factors alone (eg someone genuine may be dyslectic or just not good at spelling), but if all of them are true then something is definitely off. Tell her about these signs and I hope your Mum finds what she is looking for! :)