Dating scams are a huge problem in this country. Countless people get their hearts broken and their life savings stolen by unscrupulous fraudsters. That's bad enough. But the case of West Australian woman Jette Jacobs is even more tragic.

She was found dead in a guest house in South Africa. It looks very likely that she was murdered. And the prime suspect is the Nigerian man she had been charmed by online, and was in that country to marry.

Mr Omokoh was the last person to see Ms Jacobs alive and told police he found her body. He has since disappeared.

Ms Jacobs, a widow who had six children, struck up an online relationship with Mr Omokoh three years ago and travelled to South Africa to meet him in 2010 before he proposed late last year. Over several years she sent $200,000 to Mr Omokoh and another man she met online, known only as Isaac.

The woman's family knew about the relationship and tried to stop her form travelling to Africa. But she wouldn't be talked around. It shows just how powerful a motivating factor the desire for love can be.

There is a new niche dating site with a very unique concept behind it. It's called Fatepod, and it caters to people who have had a chance encounter with someone they found attractive and want to meet again. So they can sign up to the site and see if this person - along with their encounter - is listed.

It's a very intriguing idea, and I can see the appeal. But surely the odds are against it working. It would need huge numbers of people signed up for it to have any kind of success. That's why I suspect it might end up slowly going belly up, like so many odating sites these days.