Potential Scamming?

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Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 3:21 am

A friend directed me here after I spoke with her about this whole situation. I've got a few photos, and I'll give you the background, as I'm not the one interacting with this person directly. If you've seen these photos before (as in stock images from a model site, or other scammers using them), please let me know.

Anyway, my father's got an apparent girlfriend whom is Brazilian and lives in Nigeria with her mother who works for an airlines company, I don't know the name, and all I know of her is that her name is Mary.

I know she asked him to wire her money for a plane ticket as she couldn't raise the funds herself, but has, since then, evidently gotten the money to fly to the States as after their month of knowing one another, 'love each other dearly' and wish to get married. At the very least, it sounds like a greencard scam, though I'm a bit lacking on the finer details of the whole thing.

I've done some searching through the forums, but have been unable to locate anything of the sort similar to the images. The images are safe for work.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 4:41 am

That sounds like a pretty common Nigerian scam.
The photos are probably from a model agency site in Hawaii they love to steal photos from. Focus agency hawaii? Somebody will remember the url.

Maybe your father balked at sending her money for airline tickets?
She will come up with some reason he needs to send cash via western union.
Lost passport, need to pay fine or bribe, overdue hotel bill, mother needs operation, she's had an accident, etc.
A green card is the least likely goal. The 'lady' doesn't exist, as she presents herself. Your father is probably exchanging love notes with a teenaged nigerian boy!
Has he talked to her on the phone?
Convince him to break off contact, or at the least not disclose any personal details or send money.
The nigerian scammers are versatile. The scam can take many forms. In any of them, he will get screwed!
He may be asked to deposit checks for her, and send her some of the money by western union.
She might ask him to accept packages for 'her' in advance of her arrival. The packages will be various goods, purchased from online retailers, with stolen credit cards. He'll be asked to ship them to her when an emergency comes up and she can't visit him right away, or even more dangerous, a local cohort may stop by to pick them up!

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 4:47 am

Little late I'm afraid. I talked to him about the whole thing, really pissed him off something fierce, but he came clean. He wired the money, about $1700 through Western Union yesterday, and she's yet to purchase the flight.

Also, I looked into the photos themselves and pulled up the digital watermark info. Two of them are from October 20th, 2004 (the beach and funny hair one). The other is from October 29th, 2005.

From the look of the beach, I'm guessing Oceanside (about 20 minutes from San Diego), California, which I asked him, and I was told she used to live in Santa Barbara here in California, which is about a 3 hour drive, depending on traffic, a fairly common commute if you're looking to get away for the day.

Edit: He's also spoken with her on the phone.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 4:54 am

She may try to get more money out of him. Sometimes people get scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars this way.
As long as he seems willing to pay, she will come up with some reason he needs to send her money.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 4:59 am

I'll be sure to point it out to him, I've got some information on her, about to check into her Yahoo account now.

I appreciate the help, too!

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:01 am

He talked to some female on the phone, not the girl in the pictures!

His money is gone. It will be difficult to convince him he has been scammed, and there is virtually nothing he can do about it.
She may try to get more money from him.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:08 am

I'm not picking up anything about her first or last name, or her email in Yahoo's directory, although I myself don't keep that sort of information readily available on the internet, though it wouldn't surprise me if a scammer does the same.

I pointed what you said to my father and warned him of the potentials that can happen. He knows not to send any more money, at least.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:14 am

Kazlor, you should PM a moderator and get guidance on how to help your father out. A lot of folks here work with victims, warn potential victims etc.

You have definitely found the right place Smile

Now all that needs to be done is get the scammer's hooks out of your dad. Wink

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:18 am

I just went through Focus International's website and found her 'photos'.

http://www.focusagencyhawaii.com/view_female_models.htm

Model's name is Tabitha.

Edit: I've seen it done in these posts, so I might as well do it myself. But as far as I can tell, it obviously is a scammer. The 'name' she goes by is Marry Williams, and her email/Y!IM is [email protected]

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:21 am

The nigerian scammers are all over various dating sites on the net.
They'll frequently pretend to be a non-black girl from the US, working or studying for some reason in africa.
They're on virtually every dating site, my space type places, and various chat sites.
Good luck! I had a relative in a similar situation a while ago.....

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:29 am

Thanks for your help, guys. I GREATLY appreciate it.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:06 am

Alright, so besides a shotgun, what else can I do?

My father gave them our mailing address.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:18 am

A shotgun is always a crowd-pleaser Twisted Evil

But seriously you should not try to bait this one yourself. First thing is to convince your dad that this is a scam, which according to your earlier posts, is not going to be an easy task. This is why I recommended earlier to PM a mod to discuss your options at this point in convincing your dad that this is, in fact, a scam.

I personaly have not been involved with baiting any of the dating scammers, but I have read enough of the other baiter's posts regarding victims that these scams can be some of the tougher ones when it comes to convincing victims.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:32 am

Yeah, no matter what I say, he's taking her side in the whole thing. If anyone's willing to go after this scammer, by all means.

And I'll PM a mod in just a minute.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:44 am

I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding a few folks to give Mary all of the special attention that she needs Wink

Kazlor wrote:

Yeah, no matter what I say, he's taking her side in the whole thing.

Parents!

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:28 am

Right, so there's this really crappy itinerary that my father got sent.
I'll edit out the personals, but the email states it needs a BTA (Basic Travelling Allowance). I've checked it out at ask.com and the results all state it's fake. Not only that, but there's several glaring errors in the document, both in the flight info itself. Explicit personal details, I've removed and replaced with ***'s. Also, I've put in comments in parentheses. Save for that, this is unedited.

Hello Miss Mary Williams ,
We want to tell you that your receipt as been ready and when you are travelling , also we have not tell you that ,you will be charge to pay for (BTA) fees and i would like to explain what ( BTA) means ,
(BTA) IS defined as the basic travelling allowance... we know that you will be thinking of what this is called if you have not heard about it before, this basic travelling allowance means the money that must be whith anybody travelling or leaving this country to another destination country, the money must be $2,000.. this is the money that miss mary will show the imigration in the embassy before they can allow her to leave this country to united state.... (United State? That's new.) this $2,000 is not for her to spend is not for anybody is not for even miss mary is not for our company and its not for the imigration neither the usa embassy here, this money is just for her to show the imigration in the embassy so that the imigration will know that she has a money to spend in your or any of her destination country that shes going too...THANKS ... FROM THE MANAGEMENT

RECEIPT
--------------------------------------------------
DEPARTURE... MURITALA MOHHAMMED INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT LAGOS NIGERIA (Muritala is spelled wrong, accoarding to Google. It is supposed to be Muratala.
Confirmation:***** (A series of five letters, all capitals)
Ticket Number(s):************* (A series of 13 numbers.) --------------------------------------------------
Flight Number: BA0074
Flight Number: BA0074
Flight Date: JUNE-30-2006 7.AM (No specific time?)
Arrival Date. JUNE-30-2006 3.PM (Again, no specific time?)
Arrives: Riverside (California),United State (United State, again?)
--------------------------------------------------
Flight Number: BA0085
Flight Number: BA0085
Flight Date: JULY-1-2006 - 9.AM -
ARRIVAL DATE. JULY-1-2006-7.PM
Departs: Riverside (California),United State
Arrives: Los Angles International Airport

(Again, the time, and United State. Los Angeles is spelled wrong. Not to mention the funky line setup for the ARRIVAL DATE, which is also different. )
--------------------------------------------------

I've pointed all this out to him, and still, he is taking her word on it. I've done business with several companies before, and nothing I've ever seen has looked so shoddy. On top of that, she forwarded the email to HERSELF before forwarding it this way. One of my aunts works for United Airlines, I'm going to see if she can't look up the flight info, probably won't work, though. There's no mention of who the flight's with.

Also, apparently nobody else has her Y!M according to the parental unit. I'm also curious as to know which Mod to PM?

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:37 am

Do you have the IP address of her letters? Sometimes googling them will give you some good information about other people scammed by the same person. The same with the email address.

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

What I have done to convince a stubborn victim that he was being scammed, was to go on YIM pretending to be another scammer, tell the scammer acting as Marry that I want to get in to dating scams and can she tell me how to do it, then save the chat log and take screen shots of her telling you how the scam works.

There is a bit more to it than that, like I showed the lad I could make fake Western Union money transfer payment slips to show to victims etc, they were very interested and then told me all I needed to know about dating scams, which I showed the victim with screen shots, he then believed he was being scammed.

I will have a crack at Marry on her [email protected] YIM name if you want?

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:47 am

Unfortunately, not the IP address. It's being forwarded to me through another email on a different computer. I'm also not seeing anything in the email headers for her own IP, tracert shows only brings up more crap from Yahoo on any IP I put in, either that or Charter, which is a local ISP here. I'm also getting no returns on the email addy. I did tell him to send her a current photo holding up a sign with a message he gives her.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:50 am

Scam Patroller wrote:

I will have a crack at Marry on her [email protected] YIM name if you want?

Unleash the fires of hell! In other words, go for it. Just be aware that apparently nobody else has that IM. It shows up in the Yahoo directory if you check her info on that IM, though, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

She has just accepted me as a contact on YIM

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 26 Feb 2005 Posts: 16

Kazlor wrote:

Flight Number: BA0074

BA is British Airways if I remember my airline codes.

IATA is the International Air Transport Association IIRC. Each code is unique.

from: http://www.airlinecodes.co.uk/

Airline codes wrote:

IATA Code: BA
ICAO Code: BAW
IATA Accounting / Prefix Code: 125
Known As: British Airways
Full Name: British Airways P.L.C.
Country: United Kingdom
Callsign: Speedbird
Remarks: Formed by the merger of B.E.A and B.O.A.C.
Notes:
Web Site: www.britishairways.com

Booking confirmation codes should consist of 6 (not 5) capital letters, at least in my experience.

BA does not service Nigeria unless there is some strange code sharing arrangement. Sometimes you can get a BA flight number on a partner airline but it should show up in their booking system.

You can go to this site to check out the confirmation information.

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/fx/public/en_gb?prim=booktrip

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 10:01 am

Interesting, especially for someone who apparently doesn't talk to anyone else on that IM. I gave my father a head's up on what's going on, he knows to play dumb if she asks who is IMing her.

And I'll check into it now, Dirty.

Yeah, I'm not seeing any info on flights to or from Nigeria.

Also, I just checked into the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_987.html

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

She has gone quiet now, I am charles Soludo, she is not biting Evil or Very Mad

:

Quote:

charles_soludo_cbnbank: how far bro

BUZZ!!!

marry williams: who is this

charles_soludo_cbnbank: ngozi

marry williams: dont know u ok

charles_soludo_cbnbank: you not know me, my friend he say you can help me in formet

charles_soludo_cbnbank: i can make westy payment slips, but i need some help from you

marry williams: who is ur friends and tell me is name ?

charles_soludo_cbnbank: i do cbn formats but not much maga go for dat now

marry williams: really want to know whre u get my id from

charles_soludo_cbnbank: from mi friend, he say you do romance format and that what i nedd help on bro

charles_soludo_cbnbank: if you can helpme wit dat, i can make you westy payment slips to give to yor magas

charles_soludo_cbnbank: i can make you a westy payments slip so you can see how goodmy work is

charles_soludo_cbnbank: na good and maga accept them

BUZZ!!!

charles_soludo_cbnbank: so we can deal yes?

BUZZ!!!
marry williams: dont u know

marry williams: tell me my name

charles_soludo_cbnbank: i not know you name, i just give your yim adddress

charles_soludo_cbnbank: so you want to see my payment slips?

marry williams: no

charles_soludo_cbnbank: bro, na good stuff i make, maga dem pay when they see payment slips

charles_soludo_cbnbank: these look same as reall westy slips

BUZZ!!!

BUZZ!!!

charles_soludo_cbnbank: oh boy, why you not chat?

marry williams has signed out. (28/06/2006 11:07)

She has gone off line now, fecker Evil or Very Mad

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 10:13 am

Yeah, she just sent to him that she needed to go and take a shower.

Also for him to text her on the phone.

And forgive my ignorance, I followed everything except for the "Maga." What is it?