Though her experience had a happy ending, she's heard plenty of stories that did not work out well. White advised to be protective with personal information because it's easy to lie online.

"I've had tons of friends that have fallen for scams or had quote unquote 'buddies' who died and magically came back from the dead," White said. "It happens way more often than you realize. It's kind of ridiculous -- after 20 years, when I hear somebody [online] say, 'I have cancer' or whatever, my first instinct is 'Hmm, wonder if that's true.' If you fall for it, it's because you want fall for it."   

Within 24 hours of registering on Match.com in 2010, Barbara Hassan had three matches "who by all accounts were intelligent, good looking and well off." Too good to be true, she thought.

And she was right.

One of her matches said he was "an architect/construction manager who built and designed a building in Nigeria for orphans," Hassan, a 48-year-old divorcee in Texas, wrote in her iReport.

They corresponded online for a few months, until the man asked Hassan to pay for his ticket to the United States. The total would only come out to $2,700. When she saw the e-mail asking for money, she had a good laugh.

Hassan had become suspicious long before he asked for money. When she asked the man, who claimed he was an engineer, a physics question, he got it wrong.

"He thought he had me hooked but little did he know," she said. "After I realized he was a scammer, I decided a little taste of his own medicine was due. So I let him get to the 'ask for money' part and then I shut the door on him."

But just when Hassan thought she was done with online dating, she met her husband in 2011.

"He looked at my profile, and I sent him a smiley face," she said. "Three days later, we had lunch."

They bonded over their online dating scammer stories and got married 14 months later. Even though Hassan was the victim of a scam, she said she was "extremely blessed" to have found her husband online.

"For some reason I kept that one profile up and now I have a wonderful man in my life," she said.

Whether people are looking to find their soul mate or just to have some fun, Lawson said it helps to go into online dating with a sense of humor.

"In online dating and in life, it's nice to have thick skin, let things roll of your back and move on," she said. "You have to be patient. You won't put your profile up and be struck by lightning with the perfect person for you."

Do you have online dating horror stories? Share them in the comments below.