Please give me advice

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Aug 2011 Posts: 9

I feel really stupid, but have been victimized by a very sophisiticated scammer. I am an educated well-travelled person but obviously too trusting. I have read everything I can on scammers in the last week and I'm pretty sure he's Nigerian. I met him on match.com when I first was separated from my now ex-husband. He portrated himself as a construction engineer from the UK living in Georgia, but about to travel on business to Africa. I'm sure his photos were stolen from Match or another victim, since the man in these photos is white. Of course, there were constant delays, which prevented him from ever coming back. Recently he said his friend's girlfriend was moving and asked if I could keep a couple of boxes for him at my house. (Yes, stupid me gave him my address and cell phone number). In one of the boxes were 5 blackberries, along with a funny assortment of men's and women's shoes and clothes. I am in contact with the woman who sent them to me and she is obviously a victim too and I have figure out he and his friend are the same person, since it's obvious from the writing. She told me the phones came to here from a "Chinese company" a couple of years ago. I'm sure they are somehow stolen. This scammer knows I am suspicious but does not know I am completely on to him. What should I do with these phones which I'm sure are untraceable at this point? I'm tempted to just throw them away. What do I do about this man who has my contact info and my cell phone number and is pressing me for $3,000 to get home? Break contact with no explanation? I have his cell phone number. It has a South African prefix ( his contract was supposedly there) but I know he has connections to Nigeria and has been there in the last year at least twice.
I feel very stupid. For anyone else who is afraid to speak up about being vitimized, I don't have a low self esteem, nor am I unattractive. I did not consider myself naive either. I have learned a big lesson from this.
I would apprectiate any advice about how to deal with him and those phones. Thanks.

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 4:23 am

I would PM a Mod straight away, as well as post everything you possibly can over at the sister site "scamwarners" www.scamwarners.com

if you have the emails, you could post them as well as the header info there so at least no-one else buys into him. And drop him, drop him like a hot potato. He has your real life details. Once he realises you won't have anything more to do with him, hopefully he'll move on.

welcome to eater, I just wish it was under better circumstances. Hopefully, someone more clever than me will have better advice Embarassed

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Aug 2011 Posts: 9

I have been asking him for documentation and he faxed me a copy of his "contract" in South Africa. It it a large Chinese company, a real one, and the names on it are real people. I googled them. I'm thinking of writing to one of the men listed there and tell him what's going on. I also have a copy of a police report where his cell phone was stolen on his contruction site. I think all of this is somehow fake though. As I mentioned, he is very sophisticated. On the surface, everything checks out, but I know the UK embassy would not abandon one of their citizens like he claims. This person is very good at this, both with details and psychological manipulation.

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 4:39 am

Which is why you should drop him. He's had you hooked and will use every trick he has in his little black book to keep you hooked. And you're right the British embassy wouldn;t just drop someone like that.

If he's that good, maybe post the emails here (with your details removed of course). I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd like a crack at your lad.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Aug 2011 Posts: 9

Ok. Here is the first email he wrote to me back in March 2010, introducing himself. His English is obviously funny, but he blamed it on being half Spanish. He is going by "Justin Williams" with me and by "Bob Richards" with this other woman. She showed me his messages from him and he is using a different picture and a different story with her:

Thanks for your message, its ok to communicate through email messages, am glad to read about you and to know what your family is like, i believe that with good communication, we will be able to grow in friendship and then see what we both want from the friendship, thanks for believing in friendship.

Hmmm....so I guess I will tell you a bit about myself. My full name is Justin James Williams, I was born on February 14 1965 in the United Kingdom, although i did not have British accent because i stay some years in Spain even though i can no longer speak Spanish very well, but i am British and can speak my language, I was born to a British father and Spanish mother, Both of my parents are really in love till the demise of mum and dad still find it hard to believe, that is why he went back to Spain where he had met her some years back, he sent a message to me long ago, that he feels better in Spain than in the Uk since mum's death, so i think he will continue to be there..

I was in Canada for some part of my education and it was there i met the woman that gave me the lovely daughter that i have, i really care for her and will never do anything to hurt her, but she hurt me and herself.. Anyway i believe that its not right between us that is why it didn't work for us.

I'm single right now and I've been in a few serious relationships but have never been married before, i believe that happiness is more than just saying "we are married" there are many people that are happy and having good relationship without been married, although i did not mean that its bad to be married, but never marriage or anything like that. Both of my longest relationships were for 2 years. I feel that this part of my life is empty right now, and I would really like to fill this part of it. I miss having someone to talk to, or lay next to, or share things with. I am happy with what I have right now, don't get me wrong, but I miss this part of my life immensely. I am a passionate, intimate person, am caring and i can say that am romantic too, i just need an understanding partner, someone that will also care for me and be ready to love and be loved, someone that will love me for who I am, and what I do. I want to be able to do lots of different things with them, whether it's cooking dinner, watching t.v. (sports on occasion), going to a movie, being active like going to the gym, or golfing, playing other sports, or anything like that, i wish i could be able to hold my partner hands in hands while we walk along the beach, i wish i could be able to kiss her in the public and show her love, i wish to be able to do a lot of other like with her and makes her happy, things like going to the park together, going to fish together and a lot of other things that will make good memory for us and makes us happy.

I need to be able to trust my partner, be able to talk to them about anything and be able to be honest with them. I believe you need to forgive and forget if there is any disagreements, especially since they're usually about nothing serious anyway. I want to be able to live life with them, but also have my own life. I believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder, so I think it's healthy to spend some time apart and not spend every waking moment together. But when I spend time with my partner, I would want to make the most of it. So that's about it for the relationship part!

So my hobbies...I like cars, a lot. I want my career to take me toward cars, especially high performance tuning and modifications, and racing. I've been around cars my whole life, since my dad owned a car dealership. I love sports, I've played them my whole life... soccer (or football over there), basketball, tennis, golf, baseball, volleyball, etc. I was Male Athlete of the Year when I graduate high school. I still stay active now, I'm hoping to play baseball and golf this summer, and I go to the gym 4 or 5 times a week to work out. In the winter. I like BMX (stunt biking), I have been riding for a few years now, and I enjoy going to the skate park and riding. It's a great sport, but it's hard on the body. I do enjoy it though. But music is probably my biggest love right now. I couldn't imagine a world without music. I have been into music since I took piano lessons when I was younger, then I played trombone in high school concert and jazz bands, now I play drums on my spare time. I taught myself how to play. I listen to a lot of hard rock music, I also listen to some hip-hop, rock and roll, jazz, funk etc. More or less, though, it's rock music that I love the most. I believe listening to a good variety helps you grow as a musician though.

About my job, am a construction engineer and presently filling document to secure some contract, although i have a contract that has been awarded already, but am still pursuing another one which i think will be better, the contract i won at the moment is out of Europe or America, it will be executed in Africa, it was awarded by a company that is from China, they want to award some relief construction to Three African Countries and also there is one part of the contract that is also in Asia. But the one am pursuing/filling documents for at the moment is a US company based in the UK and i will go for the contract in Canada.

Ohh yeah, less i forget, i like the ocean too, and i enjoy swimming a lot, its cool here on the Atlantic. You take if for granted when you aren't near it, especially if you grew up next to it. The ocean is very powerful, and it means a lot to me. My parents are actually building their new home right on the ocean before i lost my mum and dad decided to sell the stuff. It's an incredible view.

From your better known friend
Just.

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 5:54 am

I think it's in the details. See how he suddenly lacks them when he talks about his "contract"? A genuine engineer would at least be able to talk about what they're actually doing wherever the hell they are...

Was he writing to a yahoo account? If you can get the headers out of the email, you will hopefully get a better idea of where he's really from? if not maybe someone else will be able to help you get the header info out of his emails

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Aug 2011 Posts: 9

One way I think you could get his attention is to put in a friend request on facebook. You can search him with his email address. It's . I'm sure that's not his real picture. He has a funny accent. He does not sound African to me. He sounds a bit northern British to me, but he also does not pronounce his "h". He says "am" instead of "I am" and I blamed it on Spanish, until recently I read that Nigerians do that.

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 6:10 am

Okies, let's see if he bites. The Ditz has added him. If he bites, she'll play lonely divorcee looking for lurve... In fact the photo IS familiar, though I can't put a name to him.

Tineye comes up with nothing, though it doesn't mean it isn't stolen

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Aug 2011 Posts: 9

I tried all of those searches on his and Bob Richardson's photos and nothing came up. I did an email search and found him on Tagged. It doesn't tell where this photo is from since it's connected to this email.

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 9:56 am

Welcome jane19!
Internationalchrysis gave you good advice. You need to drop this scammer right now. You will not be able to gather useful information from him; he has prepared his story with a whole lot of lies, and lies he would tell you.

Please post your story over at our sister site
www.scamwarners.com

There are specialists who will sort everything out for you. For instance, I'm working there, too, with a different name.

Currently the scammer is getting angry and might start to threaten you. So block him from chat, add his email address to your spam folder, don't answer his calls. Consider getting a new phone number.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Aug 2011 Posts: 9

Thank you. I have ignored his efforts to contact me for a few days now and I will get on your sister site in a few hours. Thanks.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Aug 2011 Posts: 9

Can you explain how to tell where an email comes from? You said you can tell from the headers. Thanks.

Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 11:30 am

Here you are:
http://www.abika.com/Reports/Samples/emailheaderguide.htm

EDIT: When you see the header - all the technical gibberish - copy it and submit it for analysis here:

http://www.iptrackeronline.com/header.php

Note: not all headers show the true location, it depends on the provider and whether or not the sender uses dirty tricks.

Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 12:19 pm

IF somebody hasn't told you yet, the items were purchased with stolen credit cards.
The clothing is easy to get rid of, some charity will be happy to have them.
If the phones were more simple phones, there are some charities that would take them, also, but I'm not sure they hand out blackberries to underpriveleged people. Smile

(can't think of the name of a phone charity now, but one in the US will take old cell phones and give them to ladies who are victims of domestic abuse....so they can call the cops if the jerk in question is acting up)

Don't feel too stupid, 5 years ago, right after I got involved in this, I stopped by a relatives house on the holidays, and found a pile of packages like yours stacked up in his foyer. NO electronics but mens clothing, which would look pretty funny on the hottie my relative thought he was holding the packages for...since she was on her way to visit him, but, OH NO, 'I've being sent to Nigeria by my company, can you send my SALES SAMPLES to me there?' ( she was supposed to be a computer parts salesman) Wink

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Aug 2011 Posts: 9

Thanks. I won't judge anyone this happens too. He had and answer for everything and produced documents when I asked him. I have been suspicious for quite a while. Those phones said it all though (for the "motherless home"). I checked out the people on the documents and they were real and the company was real. I'm sure it's all fake though. I did look up the IP addresses from all of his emails yesterday. It looks like he was in Georgia when he said he was for the first one, but he was in Nigeria when he said he was still in Georgia and also there when he was claiming to be in South Africa. He seems to really be in Pretoria, South Africa now as he claims. I have cut him off but he is trying to contact me on my phone, begging me to contact him. I'm sure he just wants those phones. I'm ignoring him. If it does not stop soon, I'll have to change my number. This will never happen to me again and I hope to help others avoid this. I hope he doesn't show up here, but all of you say that won't happen.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Aug 2011 Posts: 9

Here are links to two fake dating profiles on my scammer, one as a man linked to his yahoo ID: jwhills40, and the 2nd one disguised as a woman. He has my address, but maybe one of you will take a crack at him...aka her:

http://www.cydating.com/jwhills40

http://www.dateicon.com/free-dating-profiles-1051.htm