Ongoing Personal Warning Story

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Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:23 pm

Twice a week I go to the gym. Because I have trouble setting the machines to the right place, I have a trainer who helps me. During my sessions we chat about a lot of stuff. I told him a few weeks ago about my scambaiting activities, and I slipped into "teacher" mode and gave him a lecture on romance scams. Embarassed

Yesterday he told me his wife was telling him about a woman in her office who is all ga-ga over some guy she met on the internet. The woman is telling everyone that he has bought her tickets so she can fly to the UK to meet him (he is in the UK on business). She says he has told her to come prepared to get married. Apparently he fell in love with her very quickly.
Rolling Eyes

Now, you and I all know what this sounds like, right? Well, my trainer had paid attention to my lecture, because he told his wife, "You know, this sounds just like the scams my client has been telling me about." He then proceeded to repeat to his wife what I had told him.

He says his wife will have a word with her co-worker.

I go back to the gym on Saturday. I will suggest that my trainer's wife ask if his phone number begins with 4470. If this is a lad, the woman's eyes should get really big when her friend knows the beginning of his phone number. Shocked

My trainer also said he'd try to get email addys and maybe an innocuous (non-love-letter) email. I don't hold out a lot of hope for that, but he is fascinated by the idea that we may help save this woman from financial and emotional tragedy.

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:46 pm

Very good of you, they're everywhere, but this one will not get paid(again)

GOOD JOB! Thumbs up

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:00 pm

She hasn't been asked to send him any money though. On the contrary, he's paid for her air fare to the UK. Possibly with a stolen credit card, but how does he stand to benefit?
Doesn't sound genuine, but it doesn't seem the typical Love Scam to me.either.

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:06 pm

Easy she'll be needing a visa, an extra surcharge for fuel anything he can think of. Did he buy the tickets or just said he did, cause if..you can check that

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:12 pm

You can be sure there will be some last minute "problem" that requires money to resolve it.

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:33 pm

My guess, from other scams I've read about, is that at the last minute he'll be called to Africa for his business, so the trip will have to be cancelled. Then, of course, he'll get into some kind of trouble in Africa -- and we all know the rest of that story.

Love lads are sometimes very patient, "grooming" their victims over months to be sure they're good and hooked. Sad

Trophy Videos · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:50 pm

Hopefully the word will get through all that filtering of people, and she will look more closely at this. I warned someone myself a couple of years ago, and it took a couple of weeks to really get through to him that the lady in South America was fake. Good thing his house mate helped out on that one. He did what I suggested, making a new profile and sending the lad a message. Good luck, Titania.

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 7:02 am

Have you given your trainer a link to Eater to pass on? If not you should. Im pretty sure this site will wake allmost any person up!

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:09 am

I seriously believe that as baiters we all have a responsibility to inform our family, friends, colleagues and the wider community about internet scams (but not necessarily our baiting activities) whenever the opportunity arises. The lack of public awareness of even the most basic and long-running scams is quite terrifying and ensures that the lads continue to rake in billions of dollars worldwide every year.

Elite Baiter Joined: 16 Jul 2008 Posts: 1407

The only time I have been close to a scam-warning situation was when my Aunt and her husband got tangled up in a MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) scam.

Essentially it was a Ponzi Scheme. They ended up losing about $485 for "fees" that they had paid into the organization. Unfortunatly they didn't have $485 to lose.

I do like to think I had some hand in taking it down however. I ended up contacting the police dept in the Florida town, and talking to the AG for the area. Shortly after that the offices were raided and the company was shut down. It seems the "CEO" had run off with close to $4.5 million. Most "workers" were never paid, and those that had gotten paid were simply paid from the fees charged to the new "employees".

This was several years ago. Now that the economy has gone to the crapper I hope that they don't end up in the same boat. My mom told me that he has just lost his job. I can see him getting involved in an internet "check scam". Grrrr.

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 2:29 pm

Very likely there will be a reason she can't fly out. But make sure she understands it is still a scam if he follows through with airline tickets...It could turn out to be like this one:

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=148979&start=0

This was a particularly capable love scammer who really did fly his victim to multiple places (no doubt using stolen credit cards to pay for the tickets). In turn, he was using her as a mule/money launderer and free cell phone service on her visits.

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:14 pm

I had mentioned this site, scamwarners, and romancescam to my trainer when I was first talking to him. He said he told his wife about them.

My hope is that at least his wife looks at the sites and passes information to her co-worker. Unfortunately, I don't know either of the women, so I can only filter information and advice through my trainer.

Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 8:20 pm

I saw my trainer again this morning. I had printed out some info, including the info for ScamWarners, Romancescam, and this site. I also gave her an email address where she can contact me if she has questions, and a few other little tidbits like the fact that a 4470 telephone number (the man says he's in the UK on business) is a "redirect" number and things to look out for - like specific punctuation mistakes.

He said his wife has not seen the other woman lately, as they teach in different buildings, but he will give his wife the printout and she will try to get it to the woman on Monday.

The fact that the woman is a teacher give us a little time - she doesn't have any significant time off for trips to England until Christmas, so I hope we can get through to her before then.

Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 9:20 pm

Well done Titania. Just out of interest, do you know the area where this scammer is claiming to be located?

If it's a city I'm familiar with I could do a bit of 'digging' Very Happy

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