GhScamfighters.com?

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Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 10:11 am

Has anyone looked into this site? I came across it in a unusual place. On the site datemefree there is a gallery of scammers they have banned. On the tag line of this profile found there was this:

GHScam (name use for the profile)
30 y/o male Accra, Ghana

GhScamfighters.com is dedicated to fighting cyber-fraud also known as scam or 419. We decided to do this for several reasons. Some of these are; 1. Scamming is a crime and ev...

Waaaaaaaaay long linky

On the GhScamfighters opening page is this ...which mad me go hmmmm.

"This site is different from the numerous scam-fighting sites you have probably visited. GhScamFighters work in a very different way. We don't just ask victims to report scams as the other sites do. We can help you track, verify someone's identity, do background checks and if we have enough evidence, we will present your case to authorities for arrest of your scammer.

One main difference between us and the other scam-fighting sites, is that we will actually report the crime that was committed against you to the proper authorities for arrest and possible retrieval of your money or items. The other scam-fighting sites don't. Please join us to fight this menace off the globe."

http://ghscamfighters.com/site1/

I dunno know but for some reason the site gives me the creeps. Why would an anti scammer site put a profile on a dating site then get banned by the site and added to their scam list?

If I posted this in the wrong place ....I apologize.

She~

Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 10:32 am

hmm looking at the page source there is a paypal donation link with the e-mail.
[email protected]

Amenuvor is a common Ghanaian surname .. I'm just wondering how legit this site is*
Perhaps it's a lad looking for people who have already been victims, athough he might be someone looking to legitimately make a buck or two getting info on the original perps if he has contacts in Ghana.

The site is hosted legitimately enough altough pretty amateurish.

Whois info hidden for this site
I think it's this guy,
HIS ADDRESS RIPPED OUT BY ADMIN .. BOOO Wink

Googled the surname. Pulled whois from a very similar domain registered to one "Emmanuel Amenuvor" (you can run but you can't hide, well you can try if you want to)

There is a chance it's not the same guy but there are too many coincidences here, the laws of probability will out (update:it worked out it was the same guy)

Few more things we can check.

Does that given address exist in the U.S.A. If not that could be a sign of a scammer .
Also a telephone number to check.
Maybe someone could run a bait on him and see what if anythig happens.

*You will find out later in this post that the consensus of opinion is that this guy is 'not' a lad. But just has a very badly worded and amateurish website (in my opinion). You will also learn that the guys success rate in resolving any fraud cases is not very high so people were of the opinion he should re-word his lofty claims to retrieve any monies from the criminals

Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 10:42 am

Also looking at the forum his advice isn't that good

Quote:

the name Emmanuel belongs to a man and not a woman. we have not come across "email address deleted". However , it doesn't mean he/she is not a scammer. If you can provide us us with a picture, we will be able to tell for sure.

Well either he's looking for someone with a tattoo of a baiters dogs name on their body, or them holding up a sign saying "I am Mugu, I love 419eater", otherwise how else could he tell they were a scammer from a photo Smile

(apparently later on he claims that if the lad had sent a photo of a European woman but he name was Nigerian, then he could tell it was a scammer, yes and I'm sure so could the victim but they would have to pay you for that info)

Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 10:51 am

In fact I'm so sure this guy is actually a lad*, I've come up with a new scammer species for him.. (see scammer genus post)

The Psuedo Baiter (Nulbaiterus tohellicum): Lad who claims to be a baiter, or claims to be able to resolve a former scam, catch the crooks, and return the loot, for a small fee of course.

*You will find out later in this post that the consensus of opinion is that this guy is 'not' a lad. But just has a very badly worded and amateurish website (in my opinion). You will also learn that the guys success rate in resolving any fraud cases is not very high so people were of the opinion he should re-word his lofty claims to retrieve any monies from the criminals

Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 12:28 pm

Hmmm... I'm not so convinced yet that this is a scammer. Agreed, the contact towards victims on the forums isn't that brilliant (When a German vic complained he didn't get a response he basically got told to search for a donkey to satisfy his .. needs, not by forum staff but by a random poster. The post never got deleted though) and I have serious doubts about the 'for a small fee we will do a background check', but that is hardly evidence of scamming. For all that we know they actually DO research the scammers, and in that case it isn't AFF. There's not really a way to prove that.

Also, the information regarding the scams is perhaps not worded completely as we would, but it does give an idea and information nonetheless. I haven't seen portions which support scammers (openly or between the lines) or give a misleading explanation.

Quote:

Whois info hidden for this site (very suspicious)

eh?

Quote:

Domain Name: GHSCAMFIGHTERS.COM
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: NS21.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS22.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 25-feb-2010
Creation Date: 16-mar-2009
Expiration Date: 16-mar-2011

>>> Last update of whois database: Sun, 09 May 2010 11:46:24 UTC <<<
Queried whois.godaddy.com with "ghscamfighters.com"...

Registrant:
Ghscamfighters
accra
Accra, 23321
Ghana

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: GHSCAMFIGHTERS.COM
Created on: 16-Mar-09
Expires on: 16-Mar-11
Last Updated on: 25-Feb-10

Administrative Contact:
Fighter, Scam [email protected]
Ghscamfighters
accra
Accra, 23321
Ghana
+233.277097809 Fax --

Technical Contact:
Fighter, Scam [email protected]
Ghscamfighters
accra
Accra, 23321
Ghana
+233.277097809 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
NS21.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS22.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

The details of the registrant are incomplete, but other than that no hints to fraud. Neither [email protected] or [email protected] have other fraudulent sites in aa419's database. There is also nothing to be found at ghclassmates.com that looks fraudulent at first sight to me. Also when doing a google search for those addy's nothing related to scams comes up. I'm not getting any hits for the phone numbers in the WHOIS.

Next, this facebook group http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=27829192297#!/group.php?gid=27829192297&v=wall contains references to ghscamfighters.com. This group also looks clean at first sight, if it is fraudulent it is VERY elaborate, and as they post fake documents I haven't really got a reason to assume that's fake. Ofcourse, it's not because the facebook page is real that ghscamfighters.com is real.

Sorry, but I'm not convinced Confused

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 26 Aug 2006 Posts: 577

Isn't this related member "freeinte"?

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=181249&highlight=datemefree

Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 3:44 pm

Caligula wrote:

Sorry, but I'm not convinced Confused

Caligula

, wasn't trying to convince you, just posting my opinion.

Weirdly I didn't get any whois info at first, my bad.
Still ...

Quote:

Ghscamfighters
accra
Accra, 23321
Ghana
+233.277097809 Fax -

Cool, and I live at 1234 London Street London U.K Wink

Anyhoo, I'm still saying this doesn't seem legitimate. It just smells of a double sting to me. Get scammed then ask other scammers to help, get scammed again.*

*You will find out later in this post that the consensus of opinion is that this guy is 'not' a lad. But just has a very badly worded and amateurish website (in my opinion). You will also learn that the guys success rate in resolving any fraud cases is not very high so people were of the opinion he should re-word his lofty claims to retrieve any monies from the criminals

Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 4:04 pm

I think that facebook user is somehow connected to
http://antifraudintl.org/

The background of the images suggest that.

http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=27829192297#!/group.php?gid=27829192297&v=wall

The guys on here are genuinely pissed of with scammers ruining the integrity of their country and their nationality. I feel sorry for them, but at the end of the day, they aren't the ones getting scammed.

If this is a legit site, then apologies, but most aren't.*

*You will find out later in this post that the consensus of opinion is that this guy is 'not' a lad. But just has a very badly worded and amateurish website (in my opinion). You will also learn that the guys success rate in resolving any fraud cases is not very high so people were of the opinion he should re-word his lofty claims to retrieve any monies from the criminals

Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 5:20 pm

^^ And I was just posting mine Wink

Quote:

It just smells of a double sting to me. Get scammed then ask other scammers to help, get scammed again.

I can assure you that it certainly triggers the same reaction with me, but spending too much time in the fake banks section here has the effect that one starts to look for hard facts. I agree that it all sounds suspicious, but there isn't a single point of evidence that it actually is AFF. There are pointers that it is a bit fishy, but nothing more than that.

Quote:

I feel sorry for them, but at the end of the day, they aren't the ones getting scammed.

True, but at the end of the day it's their country's reputation that suffers, and along with that their economy, tourism,.. The prejudice that any foreigner has about them is incredible. Which is even proven here in this very thread Wink

They certainly suffer from scammers, make no mistake in that.

What can I say, I like a discussion from time to time Laughing

Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 6:21 pm

Quote:

True, but at the end of the day it's their country's reputation that suffers, and along with that their economy, tourism,.. The prejudice that any foreigner has about them is incredible. Which is even proven here in this very thread Wink

They certainly suffer from scammers, make no mistake in that.

Yes very very true, and it's not at all fair to tar everyone and everything with the same brush, and I shouldn't jump to conclusions.
It does really annoy me that scammers re-enforce a lot of the predjudice that people have towards Africa and Africans. I was brought up in Africa, Kenya and Zambia to be exact. Of course that doesn't make me an expert. Africans had their 'own' way of gettign through life and not the same as a little rich 'white' boy which I was. But my eyes were open and I saw the poverty and the desperation first hand. But what I also saw was that most Africans are hard working, resourceful , law abiding, god fearing, and family oriented with great life values.
I could see the corruption of the politicians filtering down through the judiciary and the minor officials/police force to the masses. And that eats away at the heart and soul of a nation.
My wife is vietnamese and I see the same thing in that country, a nation struggling to hold it's head above water in the 21st century whilst crime , proverty, over population, drug abuse try to drag it down.
When I went there (Vietnam) to get married, the lawyer we hired paid a doctor to sign a bit of paper to say that I wasn't 'mad'. Not that I am, but he had to get a bung to sign the bit of paper.
I still rib my wife about that today.

Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 7:19 pm

At first, without looking, I thought this site just had to be running some sort of recovery scam. Now my impression is that the intent is honorable. They will accept donations but they don't press for them, and they don't mention that as part of their assistance. The English is about what I'd expect of a fairly well educated Ghanian--generally correct but not colloquial. I kind of doubt they are ever going to get any arrests, but all the information they give could be helpful to some of their visitors. I'd leave them alone for now.

Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 7:10 am

@ wowwow

That guy is not related to antifraudintl.org. Anything he uses from us he does without permission although if he's scamfighting that works for me.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 03 Jun 2010 Posts: 2

Funny that I just googled my name and came up with this page.

I will like to put minds at rest regarding the ghscamfighters.com website.

The first thing I will say is that the site's aim is to help people and not scam.

@wowwow
Before you rush to judgment about "you can run but can't hide", here is an explanation to your findings.

I, Emmanuel Amenuvor live in Minnesota in USA. The circumstances surrounding the registration of the website are as follows:

1. The person who brought up the idea of creating such a site was in fact going from one discussion forum to another to try and help people. He had contacted a friend of his who lived in Ghana "the reason why the is a discrepancy between the 2 distinct whois records."
You will note that some organizations and financial institutions DO NOT take cards from Ghana and for that matter some countries in that region, notably Nigeria who are the primary cause of 419 activities. It is sad that certain Ghanaians have allowed themselves to be consumed by the so called quick money schemes, resulting in various scams.

2. Because of item #1, this individual could not find anyone to purchase a domain for him even though he so much wanted a website rather than scouring websites to try to simply provide a free selfless advice to people who may fall prey to scam. A friend of his helped him register the domain the first year. Here is where I came into the picture. All I did was to help renew the domain name for him. Again, please note that godaddy would not let anyone from Ghana buy or use credit cards. I went home (Ghana) to visit last year and had the rude awakening when I tried to renew one of my domains. The renewal failed and I thought it was Vodafone in Ghana. When I logged in remote to one of my computers back here, I was surprisingly able to renew the domain.

3. The paypal issue is the same as godaddy. Paypal does not accept payments from Ghana. I just offered to help the site owner out by letting him use my paypal account to receive donations if he so wishes.
As far as making bucks, I don't think he is out to make any. The onwer does have a full time job and operates the site for free at his leisure.

I hope this explains the discrepancies.

@Will Konsider. I own the house and the address that is being discussed.
A simple search on whitepages will show you the proper information regarding the ownership of the house as well as numerous other resources. For your information, there are a at least 4 people with the Amenuvor name in Minnesota.

I will appreciate if my name, e-mail and home address is removed from this post.

Thanks and have a great day!

Emmanuel Emefa Amenuvor
Owner: Ghana Classmates Network
http://www.ghclassmates.com

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 8:47 pm

Thanks for popping by and letting us know a bit of background. Whilst you're here, feel free to hang out a bit, we're not a bad lot on the whole Smile

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:43 pm

Well here is the location in Minnesota

I tried to link it, but couldn't get it to work proper, anyway the address is in a surburban neighborhood. Use google maps to check it out.

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:46 pm

Emefa,

Especially after reading what you wrote I'm fairly convinced that your site has good intentions, if a few grammar errors. However there are a couple of things I'd like to mention:

First, the information that was quoted is freely available on the internet. There are domain privacy options that will let you hide this from the whois information; I've seen it used on a few scammer sites and a few friends' sites and it might be useful here if you're concerned about it being that easy to find.

Second, I'm a bit confused by some of the advice you're giving. Specifically, this:

Quote:

If you can provide us us with a picture, we will be able to tell for sure.

I'm curious as to how you can tell the difference between a scammer and a legitimate user from a picture alone. From their emails, yes, a reasonably skilled baiter/warner can recognize it right away, but from a picture?

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

I pulled your email and address from Wowwow's and your posts. I didn't remove your name, since that is how you signed your post.

That is only a stopgap from Google leading here.

As Foo pointed out, the information was pulled off a Whois search, which is available to anyone who knows how to search for that.

If you are running an anti-scam site, I would really suggest that you have your info privacy protected.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 03 Jun 2010 Posts: 2

Thanks guys.
I will pass the message on.
I am aware of the domain name registrant protection. I just thought to leave it the way it is so that verification can be done right away just the way it is.
I thought protecting the information will only result in skepticism.

I see the grammatical error in the sentence structure. I will encourage correcting the mistake.
As funny as it may sound, here is the reason behind that line of sentence. A lot of scams that originate from Ghana follow the same pattern. Guys lifting photos, whether copyrighted or not from websites and send it to their victims as a photo of them. The trend has become so big and form about 90 percent (90%) of events leading to the scam. I will join in the fight and try to offer more help to the individual. The provision of the photos was to serve as a main filter to crack easy scams. Example is a Ghanaian with the name of Adjoa Yankson sends a photo of a white lady to a victim and the victim plays along with naivety. We can tell right away just by seeing the photo first hand.

There is a local term that has been coined for people engaging in internet scams in Ghana now. The participants are referred to as "Sakawa" + boys or girl depending on the anatomy of the individuals.

I am encouraged by the discussions on this site. From time to time, I will come back and offer my 2 cents worth of advice. I am in the IT industry and it easy for me to verify or contribute to make discussions as such come up with interesting findings.

Great job at keeping things up and running.

Emefa

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:52 pm

^^ Easy to tell in some cases, even most cases, does not mean you can always tell for sure as you implied. (Also I didn't even notice the grammar error in that sentence until now, I was referring to some other ones Wink

That said, welcome. Wink

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 4:11 pm

Emefa, welcome, and thanks for joining in. It sounds as though you have some unique skills and local knowledge that could really help the effort.

Could you go on and tell us more about the local terms and customs in Ghana? That sort of stuff can be extremely useful to us!

Not quite a Newb Joined: 05 Mar 2010 Posts: 26

Forgive my lack of faith, please. How would the possible retrieval of money and items work?

Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 2:24 pm

Hi all. Long-time follower and member of this wonderful site...but first post!

@Emefa

Over the years I have seen very few reports of arrests, and don't think I've ever read of a case where a victim's losses were recovered. So I'm a cynic. And a cynical cynic at that.

My concerns could maybe be allayed by giving me a few numbers. So here goes............

1) In the past 12 months how many "investigations" have you taken on for scam victims?

2) Of that number, how many have resulted in the arrest and/or prosecution of the scammer?

3) How many have resulted in the victim being fully compensated for their losses?

4) Are you able to provide irrefutable documentary proof of your answers to 1) - 3) above?

To quote from your site....."One main difference between us and the other scam-fighting sites, is that we will actually report the crime that was committed against you to the proper authorities for arrest and possible retrieval of your money or items."

So if you are, as you claim, a cut above us "run of the mill" scambaiters, let's see it! Maybe -you- have the missing piece of the jigsaw.

I look forward to your reply with great interest.

Frankie

Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 3:03 pm

Frankie, would like to hear these answers myself. As I said, if the guys a legitimate baiter, then my apologies. I've seen so many scam sites that I've got baiter-itus Smile

What I really don't want to happen is that 'victims' of scams, who are at their most vulnerable, having lost money, go chasing it around with people who aren't licenced to do so, whose sole intention is profit.
In the UK there is no licence needed to be a private detective and often people have found they have spent cash on a poor service and have had no result, and they also have no avenue for comeback. To claim to be able to get 'peoples money back' is a very big claim.
And that is why I jumped on this guys site thinking it was just another scam.
Anyways Emefa, hope you don't hold a grudge Wink

, just trying to do my bit.

Hey and I should get my dues for working out your actual real name and address from the tiny bit of info hidden in an e-mail link on your site. So this just shows you how easy it is to get info on someone guys Smile

Actually I think I did you a favour there Emefa, wouldn't want some big bad scammer knocking on your door in the middle of the night asking you why you were 'messin wid his bidness' , only kidding, good luck with the site.

Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 3:53 pm

I think it’s nearly impossible to accomplish what he claims. He is too optimistic. Also he’s not relying on donations only, see this quote

Quote:

GhScamfighters.com is a free website that anyone can join. We help anyone who needs our help but we also offer special services for a small fee.
1. We Do background checks.
2. We can track scammers
3. We can obtain certain documents on your behalf .
4. We can Verify and Confirm Identities.

I wonder how much is this fee and how many cases he managed to complete successfully?

Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 5:16 pm

^ I've got a gut feeling we'll never get to see any evidence of a successful money retrieval or arrest, for reasons we all know.

Like mentioned above: claiming they can determine a fraud based on the scammer's photos, or names (of which we all know they're 99.9% fakes, maybe we have to bring him some news: lads lie) offering free services to victims (for a small fee) makes me frown. I'm almost certain they will never be, or have been, able to live up to their claims. If it would be that easy to get a lad into the courtroom, AFF wouldn't be that popular in Ghana.

As I see it Emefa successfully put some effort posting a doubtful story here to get his name removed from wowwow's post, that turned up on Google search. I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if he'd ever show up again, and explained a bit more about their claims, and provided some proof.