“She found 27-year-olds, 30-year-olds, going after these girls that are only 11, 12, 13 years old.”
That’s what a Beavercreek man said his wife discovered when she checked her young teen daughter’s cellphone.
You may not even have known there were dating sites out there for teenagers. News Center 7's Sean Cudahy spoke to the family, and to police to find out how to keep kids safe.
A gas station along North Fairfield Road in Beavercreek is where these men wanted to meet their daughter, in two hours. But that won’t be happening after mom and dad got wind of it.
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“My wife was walking by my daughter’s room. She was acting strange with her phone so she kind of grabbed it for a joke. She looked at it and saw texting on Skype,” he said.
What that man’s wife saw next on the phone horrified them — all sorts of vulgar messages with different guys.
“Most of them were sexual. The gentlemen claimed they were kids until my wife started talking to them to find out what age they were to prove a point to my daughter, and there’s a 27-year-old, asking to see body parts of my daughter, meet up,” he said.
The family asked they not be identified. But they wanted to warn others about this app where, they found out, all these conversations started: My LOL.
The site describes itself as “the #1 teen dating site in the US” with “more than 300,000 members.”
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“That’s too close to home,” the teen’s father said. “There were kids that were from out of town but a lot of them were from Dayton, Ohio, and they were the older gentlemen that were interested in the kids.”
Kettering police officer Joe Ferrell said he had not heard of the MyLOL app. But he said there are numerous online sites that put teens at risk of bullying, sexting and predators.
“The internet’s the No. 1 way for predators to meet kids, and they’re acting as if they’re their age,” Ferrell said.
So what should parents do?
“My advice to parents is to trust but verify. You need to be checking up on your kids. They’re kids, they’re going to make mistakes,” he said.
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For this family, a clear lesson came out of this.
“No dating apps online for kids. They shouldn’t be there.”
And some consequences to make sure the message sinks in.
“I think she’s learned because she no longer has an iPhone.”
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