Nigerian Romance Scams



971813_469602996455995_1447395292_nAre you dealing with an African scammer?

Yeah, yeah… the topic is beaten to death… It has been described on millions of sites, millions of times. But still, it doesn’t hurt to remind again.

First and foremost. Remember mathematics at school? There is such thing called “axiom”. So, here is one more axiom, something you have to make a sticky note of and put on your refrigerator.

WHITE, HISPANIC OR ASIAN PERSON IN NIGERIA OR GHANA CONTACTING YOU ONLINE = SCAM.

You don’t have to question it, you don’t have to ask why, you don’t have to seek for exceptions from the rule, because there are NONE. That’s just the way it is. And your handsome white dude or chick in Nigeria is also no exception. Sorry.

If a supposedly white, asian or hispanic person contacts you online and then turns out to be in Nigeria or Ghana, it’s a scam. Always! As for black people, if they claim to be African-Americans, but “presently” temporarily in Nigeria or Ghana for any reason: job, taking care of a sick parent, etc.. this is also a scam. Especially if their picture looks like an African-American model. With women, further more, a PORN model.

Now, what do they do? What happens to all these people in Nigeria and Ghana? All kinds of misfortunes. This is how things go:

1) they contact you, claiming to be from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Western Europe
2) their English sucks, though they claim to be the native English speakers and they say “am” instead of “I am”
3) they give you their email or Yahoo ID in the first 1-2 messages and want to get off-site and chat on messenger
4) they are widowers, their wives died in the horrible car or plane crashes, they raise “a kid” alone, or (if they are females) they are recovering from a bad relationship with a cheating ex.
5) they chat with you, send love letters (stolen from elsewhere and easily googled), sometimes send little gifts, purchased with stolen CC
6) they talk to you on the phone and sound bloody African, but you think it’s a sexy “Italian” accent.
7) women send you nude pictures, you can bet they are stolen from porn sites
8) often, they propose you marriage or promise to marry you
9) they even send you “documents”: bad photoshopped passports and stuff
10) you are hooked, you are in love

But… you discover they are “presently” in Africa, but will be back home in few weeks. They do all kind of things there: engineers working in oil industry, contractors building bridges and roads, businessmen buying and selling antiques, nurses, models, taking care of a sick parent, etc.. All stuck in West Africa. A whole bunch of them. Literally thousands.

Then misfortunes start. They get sick. Their children get sick. They get in a hospital. They get robbed. Their documents get robbed. They get in jail. Whatever. You get letters from their kids, doctors, lawyers, hotel managers. But the point is:

They want money.

The money should be sent Western Union or MoneyGram. You, and only you, can solve their problems. Nobody else. They have nobody else on Earth to ask for help. Sometimes they are on their way to meet you and the misfortune happens right in the airport. When you thought the happiness was so close…

Do we have to remind you again?

NEVER SEND MONEY TO ANYBODY YOU NEVER MET IN PERSON

NO woman with good intentions (and of course NO REAL MAN!!!!) will ever ask you for money over the Internet.

There are twists to the story. Sometimes, their employer pays them with a check that they cannot cash in Africa (fake checks scam). They will send you the check, ask to cash for them and send them money WU. They will even allow you to keep some percentage of it. The check is FAKE. It will bounce few weeks later and you will have to return all money back to the bank. You might even be held liable for cashing fake checks and considered a fraudster yourself by your local authorities. Go prove than you didn’t know it was fake!!

Another twist: they bought something online, but a seller wont ship to Africa. They will give a seller your shipping address and ask to re-ship it to them (re-shipping scam). Whatever they bought, was purchased with a stolen credit card, soon the seller will find out, and police will be after YOU, as your address is listed as a receiver.

Or, they pretend to be in the military, and either want you to pay so they can go on a leave and meet with you (bunch of crock! it doesn’t work like that in the real army), or want to buy some special satellite phones to be able to talk to you (another nonsense, the civilians don’t pay for the army satellite phones!).

Yet another twist with some military scams: they are in Iraq or Afghanistan, and need your help in smuggling in the country gold, money, Saddam’s treasures, etc.. (trunk box scam). But to receive the treasures you will have to pay fee to customs, lawyers or any other fee associated with it. There is NO treasures and gold, just you, your wallet and a scammer.

Whatever you are involved in with Nigeria or Ghana, is always scam and fraud. Whenever West Africa is mentioned, you have to drop correspondence immediately.

They are becoming slick, though. They know people don’t trust Nigeria and Ghana anymore, so they pretend to be from any other country in the world, or that they are in the US military, and ask to send money not to Africa, but to other countries: to their accomplices and mules.

They become even more slick, and use satellites, cell-phones and proxies to hide their real IPs. They use phone numbers with the US area-codes, but in reality it is a redirect to Africa. The UK phone numbers starting with  +4470 are ALWAYS a redirect. Those are not real UK numbers.

More signs you might be talking to a scammer can be found here:
http://www.datingnmore.com/fraud/scam_signs_nigerian.htm