Hello and thank you for your question, which I will be happy to assist you with. Telling you if this is a scam just by a name or a picture is impossible. Scams are identified by the facts of what has happened. Could you please tell me what has happened so far?

Has he asked you to do anything yet?

It is too early to say if this is a scam or not but I can give you pointers that you can use to evaluate this relationship and see how it progresses and if it starts to look like a scam

As mentioned, the main way to identify such scams is not by tracing the person, which would often be impossible, but by looking at the overall situation and identifying certain red flags or other known hallmarks. The most common ones are:

1. You have met this person online, usually through a dating website, social networking service or instant messaging.
2. They will state that they are a serving soldier with the Army and are currently based abroad, usually undertaking frontline duties.
3. They will ‘trick’ you into developing feelings for them. They may have struck a long-distance relationship with you, they are very pleasant and romantic, some even fall in love straight away. They may take time to gain your trust, although often the relationship progresses unnaturally fast.
4. They may use a photo of a soldier, although these can easily be obtained over the internet so there is absolutely no guarantee that this is the person you have been talking to. You can actually try and trace the photo to see if it has been used elsewhere by using Google’s ‘Search by Image’ facility: http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searchbyimage.html
5. They will always use a free email address that is not affiliated to the army. It may look like it's genuine but it won't be. If they are in the US Army then they will have an email that ends with "us.army.mil". You can request that they provide you with that address, but often they will refuse to do so, citing various reasons.
6. They may ask you to send them parcels but request that you send them to a forwarding address rather than their official Army forwarding address. They will usually state it is for security reasons but that is nonsense as Army forwarding address are much more secure that the ordinary postal service in these countries.
7. They may ask for money. There are various reasons, which usually include: money to take leave, to travel home, for phone vouchers, etc. However, the golden rule is that soldiers will never be expected to pay to take leave or travel home so none of these requests are genuine.
8. They request that the payment is made via some dubious money transfer method, with little or no fraud protection, such as Western Union, Moneygram, etc.

If the above looks familiar, chances are that the person you are involved with is a fraudster and you need to proceed with extreme caution. I strongly suggest you follow these steps:

1. First of all, cease all contact with the person
2. Do not send anything. If you have already sent money – try to see if you can cancel the transfer

As to the photo, this is the real Gen Allen (you can also see him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Allen) but I VERY VERY much doubt that this is the man who has contacted you and that the real General will be contacting random strangers online. This is a scam

Unlikely. This will be classified army information. I have seen these scams before - this is not for real, especially when they use such high ranking officers

well as mentioned this is highly unlikely but if you want you can cautiously continue to correspond with him and see where he takes this. If any of the information I supplied above starts to look familiar, then you know this is a scam.

you won't find that information out. But maybe you should read this first:

http://www.romancescam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39353&f=3

Simply stop any dealings with this person.

Of course he would, they always do that. You can do as you wish, this is definitely a scam but it is you who makes the final decision

From the information you have - nothing. The best way to identify him is to slowly take this further and wait for any red flags to appear. I have listed the most common ones above

you will never find anything specific unless you meet this person. Until then you have to evaluate how this situation is progressing and spotting the red flags - trust me that is the only way to identify scams

in the same way you posted this quesiton...just ensure that at the beginning you write 'for Ben Jones only'

Let him...just be careful when he starts asking you to help him with coming over. There could be all sorts of reasons, but NEVER send him any money

It is uncommon to ask for anything else, but be careful not to disclose any sensitive personal information, such as passport numbers, etc

these are not that sensitive, but bank details will be so keep those to yourself

you can do that if you want but this is not something we can do for you.

I can't say this is a very specialist thing to have done and will cost a bit of money - I can tell you it is not worth it in the circumstances

My pleasure. Unless you need further help, I would be grateful if you could please quickly click to rate the service I have provided you with before leaving and choose one of the following options: OK Service, Good Service or Excellent Service. If you feel the need to leave a lower rating, please reply to me first with any further questions you have. I will be happy to assist further and clarify anything you need me to. Thank you

this is an online service but you can contact me as mentioned earlier - pout my name at the beginning of your question

Sorry not sure what you mean

this refers to help right now - for example if you had another quesiton you wanted to ask now. You can still come back to me even when you finish this conversation and rate it

Bye