"Most relationships are at least partly online, particularly among college students," said Kelleher.

Kelleher says people like Te'o make easy prey.

"In a sense, he's more vulnerable because he's such a high profile athlete and, you know, the very things that we love him for may be what made him kind of a target," said Kelleher.

Kelleher says don't fall for someone until you've met them face to face.  Not so easy, as Alan will tell you.

"When you're in that relationship, you're in love or whatever," said Alan.  "You think it's real and so you don't want it not to be real."

Kelleher tells us what surprises him most is how long it took for the story to get out about Te'o's fictitious girlfriend, since it's so easy to research thing online such as names of college graduates and obituaries.