SCAMMERS !!!

I just want to say please be very careful on social sites. My mother was just recently scammed . She lost her husband about 2 yrs ago and i know shes lonely but this guy got her for 16,000.00 ! That was her entire savings !
Very upsetting that someone can take advantage of someone and still be able to sleep at night. I hope he chokes on it ! So this Christmas is not a good one for us. I just want to warn people that if someone asks for money and you have never met them its a HUGE red flag.
Be safe everyone and Merry Christmas to you all.

NOOOO! Is there any recourse? Any way to report them?? Any way to stop payment? Oh I’m sure you already looked into all that. I just get frustrated when I hear about this happening to people.

I am so sorry this happened to her. I wish I had something useful to say to help.

Thank you for sharing. Hopefully she knows it isn’t her fault. These scammers are good. Very good. They prey on the good-hearted. Just shows your mom is a good one. Give her a hug from me, okay.

Kim, It’s actually really easy for con men (and women) to prey upon people online. Take dracco’s mother, for example. Someone that’s lonely and soft-hearted make the perfect victim for these people. (A bonus if they’re older and not as internet-saavy as the younger people.) There are a lot of diverse websites available for men and women to try to find love again; conning someone for their money is usually that rather than pretending to be a relative. You meet someone online, talk to them a few weeks, eventually get to a point where it becomes “oh jeez, I have problems and need money or it’ll be awhile before I can talk to you again.” They may not even strictly ask for it, but the instinct of _someone you like needs help_ makes you WANT to send them money.

And that’s not even counting people who use such sites to hack other people’s computers (we had to watch an internet security video at work that talked about this a lot)–all it takes is you downloading (under false pretenses, such as ‘oh it’s a picture of me’) and opening a .pdf or some other file into which they’ve inserted a program of malicious code and voila! They have remote access to your computer. They can install keyloggers, which track how you hit the buttons on your computer, as well as ‘ransomware’ which encodes everything on your computer so you can’t access it (“unless you send X amount of money to so-and-so to have the encryption removed”, or get it fixed professionally). Plus they have access to everything actually on your computer, which is why keeping passwords in a .doc is really really bad.

In the past, before the internet became such a huge social networking function, these charming swindlers had to work much harder to get their schemes to work because they had to do it IN PERSON (or on the phone), but all of them are nothing if not charismatic. And in person they had to be very good at reading people.

Nowadays? They’re probably sitting naked at their desk chair crafting fake profiles on dating sites and the like, garnering sympathy from ‘other poor wounded souls’. With the increase in apathy toward our fellow folk as well as a rise in disregard for both common courtesy and a ‘noble’ mindset, a lot of these parasites are popping up because it’s easy money for them.

I also think that a lot of the folk from older generations at least have a sense of respect? Humanity? Chivalry? That is utterly lacking in more and more people. I know for a long while, my mom took people at their word on the internet, believing in the general goodness of people and refusing to accept they might be lying or worse. Fortunately my family is not really into the online social scene–plus we never had much in the way of internet tech–so she never fell prey to such things before she wised up.

My sympathies for your mom’s situation dracco. I hope that she’s not blaming herself and that she’s cut ties with him. It will be that much harder for her to resolve if she’s still emotionally attached to him. Lots of women in this particular type of situation go into denial/still believe in that person, and it’s difficult to make them enlightened. 🙁

Best of luck to you and her if you try to get the funds reversed. It’s not an easy process at all.

My heart goes out to those caught up in situations like this. It happens WAY TOO OFTEN. Unfortunately, if the money was sent of her own free will, there is no recourse. If it was something presented to her in the form of goods or services, only then is it fraud (in Canada anyway)

If this is a ‘fresh’ money transfer, can she reverse the transaction? The bank might want a police report…but this is not a matter for the Police, so I’m not sure how to proceed…Without knowing the whole story, it’s hard to say. Sorry, I’m just brain storming…

So, Dracco, is this dead in the water, so to speak? Has your mother made any attempts to recover the money? I’m disappointed the bank didn’t offer her more in terms of protection…some banks come to know your spending habits, and not unlike your credit card company, red flags go up for irregular spending (or they should). I have heard of people almost getting scammed, and their bank says “hold up…this sounds fishy, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”, which usually makes them think twice, and get better informed.

I don’t like to suggest people “throw money” at their problems, but if this person’s identity is not in question, perhaps your mother could consult with a civil lawyer? If they offer a 30 minute free consultation, as some do, she’ll at least know her options (if any) Again…I’m just thinking out loud…I’m sure all of this was thought of already.

Oh my gosh! My chest hurts reading that.

He has her soft heart. I’m so sorry.

Do you have his supposed name? Maybe Google that and add scammer and see if he snows up and show her that? If you can see some of his letters and documents, they can be looked up too.

Will she look at links you show her? Here are just a few I’ve found.

http://www.fakewarriors.org/phonies/phonies1309.htm

 http://marriedtothearmy.com/are-you-dating-an-army-soldier-or-a-fake/

 http://asp.tacticalgear.com/the-nigerian-leave-request-scam/

 http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/consumerawareness/fl/Fake-US-Soldiers-Robbing-Women-Online.htm

 http://guardianofvalor.com/con-artists-using-fake-military-documents-to-swindle-money-using-soldiers-identities/

 https://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=71370

There has to be some way to convince her this is a scammer. It will break her heart though and I’m so sorry. I did this with another person, he was falling for a Russian girl who was madly in love with him. He sent me her beautiful letter to show me how true she was. I sent him a link with her letter on a scam site. He got hurt.