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Romance Scam

Please report romance scams and dating scams here. We accept reports on Russian scammers and Nigerian scammers.

Disclaimer regarding pictures posted on the board: please understand that you are NOT looking at the pictures of people who are actually scamming you. The people portrayed on these photos are innocent men and women, NOT involved in scamming in any way and have nothing to do with scammers. The scammers are using their images without their knowledge or permission to deceive their victims and steal their money.




Why cant this be stopped???!!!!

Is it possible?
junebug222000
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Why cant this be stopped???!!!!

Postby junebug222000 » Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:34 am

I never realized the extent of the scammers. Why cant it be stopped? Where are the authorities? I cant understand why something cant be done. I think what you all are doing is great, but something like this is way to big. It is sad that they are preying on people. It needs to be in the news more to make more people aware somehow. Just my opinion!!!

Why cant this be stopped???!!!!

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Postby Marisa » Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:50 am

Where are the authorities?
Our authorities have no power of authority overseas. Africa is out of their jurisdiction. The only ones how can catch and prosecute them are their local authorities, and they are corrupted.

Have you ever thought why these scams originate mostly from overseas countries? Because their local authorities don't give a damn and general public approves scamming. It doesn't work over there as it works over here: you report a crime to the police or FBI, they go and catch the bad guys.

Another thing is: the scams will exist as long as there are people out there willing to give them money. As long as it is profitable, they will do it.
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Postby Titania » Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:45 pm

I have even heard that the African scammers go to church and pray aloud for God to send them magas (victims), and the pastor and elders will pray right along with them. They do not see what they're doing as immoral or even against Christian beliefs. How are you going to stop someone who feels perfectly justified and righteous in what they do?

Here in this forum and in others dedicated to educating and warning people, we are doing the best we know. Really, the best way to stop the scammers from scamming is to stop the victims from behaving like victims. Education is the strongest weapon we have, and we wield it with all the knowledge at our disposal.

(I'm genetically programmed to be an educator - all my siblings are either teachers, pastors, or corporate trainers. :) )

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Postby Natural Miss » Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:48 am

Hey junebug,

Just to put a bigger skope on this already huge topic, these african scammers can be internationally connected. This is organised crime of the purest form. The African government is well aware at what is occurring in their country. That is why this is called the "yahoozie" game. As Africans they feel they have been held down for years and now its their turn to get their own back to westerners. They even have a song in which it states that they are no longer the mugu's they are now the masters! The 419 scams are actually called 419 scams as that is the African police code for such "fraud" in their country.

The millions of dollars they manipulate from people is used to employ computer hackers(to design keyloggers etc), computer specialists(to produce false documents), lawyers(to bail them out of trouble), web designers (for their fake sites), psychologists to prepare their scripts with which to better profile and deceive you with.
If you have been involved in a romance scam, you may have found that sometimes they send you a listing of 10 questions etc. You answer them thinking this person is really sweet they really want to know how i feel about things. And of course, you would be correct, they do want to know how you tick cause they have other nefarious objectives in mind for you, not the fanciful ones of love, trust, togetherness etc that you may have.

I have known of cases where after yo realise they are scammers, they then threaten you with the photo's you have provided. A friend of mine was blackmailed, pictures plastered over the internet by pictures taken through the cam!!

Dont ever cam with these people, dont ever open a doc in instant messaging from anyone you dont trust 100%, or press on a link in an email etc. Dont open the photo's they send unless you have a reputable couple of scanners to clean your system of keyloggers, trojans, tracking cookies etc etc etc.

Justice for the victims is a sore point. The amount of work it takes to get an arrest, is phenomenal. I know there has been a case where a stack of an internet cafe's "people" were arrested and brought before a judge with evidence that would sink a ship. The judge let them walk! Understand, to get any action of this magnitude is a huge co-ordinated effort and to watch them walk out of court laughing is a slap in the face of all decent folk who have been traumatised by this.

What can the average person do against a Government that simply does not see any reason why it should stop the shenanigans?? Though we should also bare in mind that just because there are a few states within that continent doing this, doesn't mean all Africans are bad people or that they support whats going on. They are just as helpless to stop this as we are. I've had conversations with the Ghana embassy in my country and the Ghanians there are so embarrassed by this. In fact, when i thought i was being scammed i went to them and they contacted the numbers i had been given and over loud speaker let me listen to the result. I realised that day that i had lost thousands of dollars, to say nothing of my self esteem, trust and pride!!

To tell you it was the lowest day of my life hardly even touches how i felt that day. One thing for sure = THAT was the day i cancelled my monthly sponsorship of the starving children in Africa. My thought being "let Africa sort out Africa and let charity begin at home".

Titania is correct. The Africans go to church every sunday morning, in fact they have HUGE inductions on how to scam and support each other doing it. Ever since i started baiting, i realised this is truely unbelievable.

Education, vigilance and support is our best defence against these people. Be careful out there.

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Postby Kasee11 » Thu Aug 07, 2008 12:05 pm

:applause: Once again, Fedup, you have added to the knowledge we have about scamming and it's complexities. I look forward to each and every time when I see you have taken time to respond. :hugz: Kasee
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Postby RL » Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:33 am

I don't know if this has been mentioned before in another topic (there are so many pages to go through ;) ), but I've been listening to Dan Cottrell's radioshow on http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ibc and quite a few of the interviewed victims of scams have told that they found out about the scam through being warned by Western Union itself. It made me think if anyone has tried to contact WU about being more active in warning people about scams.

I visited their pages online, and they do have examples of fraud and a warning against sending money in certain situations, but it's hidden deep within their pages and you have to click around quite a bit to get to the list of possible scams. I checked out Moneygram aswell, they're a little bit better, one click on consumer protection from their main page (USA) goes straight to a list of warnings about possible scams. (Btw their lists lack some of the classic frauds, such as BTA and lovescams).

I've never used any of the two, but how hard can it be for them to set up a warning for people when they want to send money to certain countries online? If somebody for example wants to send money to Nigeria, they should have to go through a general warning about ongoing scams before they can send the money. Just a little bit of coding and voilá!

It can be a little bit harder when trying to reach people who turn up in person to send money, but handing out a brochure or having a poster on the wall and tell people to read through it when they want to send money to a country on a "dangerlist".

I'm not saying it would be the end of all scamming, but making it a bit harder for the scammers to get their hands on our hard earned cash.

And yes, WU and Moneygram do earn their money from us using their services, but just the fact that they try to warn people actively (as testified on Cottrell's show) and through warnings on their online pages (just not "in your face" enough it seems), should tell us that they're trying to get rid of a bad reputation through being associated with fraud.

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Postby Natural Miss » Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:47 am

Yes RL good point! You are quite correct. I have a copy of the contract right in front of me....yes in the fine print they do warn you...

Let me ask you something.. Do you smoke? If you do.....do you read the warning on the packet??? Do you still smoke regardless??

If you dont, good on you lol. But yes...the point is.. people will still use WU because its not only used for nefarious means, it is a legitamite business. Fact is, to make these warnings any bigger would NOT be good for business so they dont and wont.

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Postby RL » Mon Aug 11, 2008 3:01 pm

Haha, good point, I did smoke quite a few years back, but gave up :) yay me :D They made the warnings cover half the package here, but still people smoke as much as before, or start with "snus" instead (equal to snuff in Australia if what my brother tells me is correct, hehe). But at least people can't say they didn't see the warning, so it's their own choice. It's different with scamming. The average person doesn't know what to look for, but WU and MG know what is going on.

I just think that if they made a policy of training their personell to react at certain signs, they would save a lot of people from "risky free business". :) A lot of people don't even know about scamming untill they become a victim themselves. I'm not saying WU or MG are responsible for our actions, but people make their choices based on what they know. WU and MG are a part of this problem and they know it, I think I'll contact them and see what they say. :D

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Postby luvstobait » Tue Aug 12, 2008 12:05 am

RL
You can contact WU an dMG all you want and they will turn a deaf ear to you -I have done it several times with no response from them whatsoever !!
They are a part of the problem and should be held a little bit responsible for us being scammed !

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Postby RL » Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:26 am

How very frustrating... If their choice is to ignore people who contact them about scams, it tells so much about them doesn't it? I think their responsability reaches further than just fine print in a contract or warnings hidden deep within their internet site, if one doesn't know about something, how is one expected to look for it?

They're making money off of scams and willingly and knowingly conceal it to enhance their own income. That makes their business semi illegal. People can get arrested for cashing fraudulent cheques that weren't discovered by a bank (just think about it, who is the supposed expert, you or the bank?? And i'm thinking about people who are victims of advance fee fraud here, not people who actually make fraudulent cheques themselves..), but companies can get away with making money off of business they know is a fraud.

Either you put your warnings in plain sight and acknowledge you'll earn a little less cash, or you have to admit your business isn't as clean as you try to make it imho. (rant off)

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Natural Miss
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Postby Natural Miss » Wed Aug 13, 2008 3:38 am

Hey RL - Those of us who are survivors of this know exactly how you feel!

Here in Brisbane Australia, you cant pay to send money through WU by cheque - they will only accept cash and BTW the law says ignorance is not an excuse! So it up to those paying for the service to read the fine print. I'm not saying i agree with it, all i'm saying is this is the fact.

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Postby dorfus » Sun Aug 31, 2008 8:02 pm

As long as the internet functions, it will never stop. I see no way to ever put them out of business for good.

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Postby Kasee11 » Sun Aug 31, 2008 8:13 pm

Dorfus what you say is true..but not just because there is internet...
Scamming is probably next to the world's oldest profession..hmmm for some reason The Trojan Horse has come to mind...We can not stop all scamming but we can make it so that they have to scam another way..all the while educating people and keeping watch. A journey begins with a step and continues with each step. That is the most we can do. :hugz: Back to my world... now add reflective to my state lol
"In my world...contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn't be..and what it wouldn't be.. it would!"

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Postby brrilo » Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:22 am

Old thread, but my 10 cents:

I don't think anything can be done about this. I get scam calls to my house in the Chicago area from phone numbers that are googlable. When I look them up, they are reported to be 6 different organizations collecting money, many times the county sheriff. Highly illegal, right? Well I saw posts that reported the number 3 years ago by people who said they contacted the local authorities (the very ones being impersonated), and yet there they are 3 years later, doing the same thing without interruption, with the same damn phone number.

If they won't go after that, there's hardly a chance for online scammers to be pursued... unless it's the occasional bust to make an example out of someone. Didn't work for anti-piracy, and it's not gonna work for this. I think the target should be educating the general public.. it's the only thing that will work in the scheme of things... life is punny that way.

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Postby Marisa » Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:52 am

We cannot stop it, but we can save a few people from being scammed. Even 100 people saved is already a big deal. Because it makes a difference in somebody's life.

This is how I see it, and that's why I am doing it. :smile:
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