Am new to all this online dating thing, so can someone tell me how do you know that the person you are chatting to is from this country when they have a .com e-mail address???

I have chatted to someone who says they are from the UK but there answers and the way they ask questions are wrong, if you know what I mean...

Isn't it clear when you check out their profile what country they're in?
I'm always suscpicious of the ones like you mentioned as they've often got other motives..........God fearing, honest... and over the top romantic wording.... many are wanting to marry to enter the UK, I've even had a proposal on a first cam chat and he was not even the same person in the photo!! Just be careful, and if you're not sure, don't give too much away or block them.
I have a lot of on-line friends across the world, but it does take a bit of sifting to recognise those genuine people amoungst so many frauds.

just like to say that both of my hotmail email accounts are .com because i registered them way back in about 2002 before they made us use .co.uk so that can be another reason why people may have .com

Yes, this is a very common story. I've had loads and as you say most of them turn out to be living somewhere in West Africa and the men are mostly saying that they're engineers and construction workers. They usually have kids that get ill, or have had their passports taken away and need money to return home.........and so on..Lots of different sob sob stories I'm sure that some people are easily taken in by them and so I really hope that these scams become more well for the 'novice user' on the web.

I find some emails with .com are this country only like btinternet or sky. Hotmail though and yahoo have recently brought in .co.uk but i have a hotmail which is.com. I find the best way to tell is ask trick questions to catch them off guard esp if it on messengers like did you get caught in the floods? they say yes go like where abouts?. Most of us are honest though!!