Earlier this year, a friend of mine told me about a local woman who married an African man with a young daughter. They met online and supposedly fell in love. That was before I met my scammer and had no idea. She married him and sponsored him and his daughter to N. America. Guess what…2 weeks after the marriage, he wanted a divorce and 1/2 share of her house as that is the law here. His true intention of marrying her was to get 1/2 her house. She is forced to sell her house and give him half the money. The law was on his side.

I have family in Malaysia too but they are distant and I do not visit frequently. 2 years ago, I did visit with my mom. I heard very disturbing news about the crime rate. I was conned out of my change right inside the airport for buying a drink to quench my thirst. And they were so swift at it as well. This I did not expect from a cafe in a country’s international airport. Does the Malaysian government set no standards for integrity on a government-owned property which is also the first entry point for all foreign visitors? That had put me off further visits.

I guess my only saving grace would be that I do not find African men the least bit attractive and will never imagine myself romancing one.

Take care of yourselves ladies. Falling in love is beautiful but do so with caution in today’s world. – Helen

I have been reading your comments for the last month or so. It has become clear that the online romance scamming syndicate is in no way slowing down. I have been “online dated” by the Terry Hargrave scammer mentioned numerous times on this site. He used a different name, but the story was the same – born in Europe, civil engineer in England, widower, gorgeous photo, loves me to bits and pieces, goes to church every Sunday, daughter named Lucy, both parents dead, no family or relatives, travels frequently to build big construction projects, has a big and beautiful house, multiple expensive cars… yet need to borrow a few thousand Euros from me for a medical emergency.

I refused of course, as I had been watching the red flags waving at me the day we started communicating. After putting me on a guilt trip, he tried again a week later, finally “dumping” me because “we cannot build trust”. “Trust” is the key word here – the word that will get us to part with our money. I think they even “blacklisted” me as a waste of time now. Several scammers (I can spot one from a mile these days) contacted me after him, then promptly blocked me from their profiles. One tried to pull a fast one asking me to view his photo album from some site that required me to download a .exe file. I asked why the need in this day and age when he can use the dating site’s backstage gallery, or Picasa or Flickr etc. No answer back of course. Knowing they can’t get me to “trust”, they try to use a .exe file to hack into my computer and steal my financial information. So be careful. They don’t just stop at first rejection.

There is no “love” with these scammers aka Boiler Room Boys of Nigeria. Every word in their story is part of a well-orchestrated setup, right down to the fictitious hotel manager – to get our money one step at a time. It takes a special form of low-life, scumbag and sleazeball with no heart or soul to use the name of God and young children to lie their way into a woman’s heart then trick her for her money.

I did IP traces on ALL the emails received from my scammer. The first was from an ISP in California, with headquarters in London, England. All the in-between ones romancing me were from Lagos, Nigeria. The last one just before the supposed trip to Europe was from Australia. Why Europe? Because Nigeria is the only African country that transacts in Euros other than the local currency. To tell me he was going to Nigeria would have been a dead giveaway, as he may have been remotely suspicious I was on to him.

Ladies, please wake up. We are not dealing with “a” scammer. It doesn’t matter what name or email address or dating site handle. It is a whole international network spanning the globe as this is turning out to be such a lucrative business for them, all thanks to our kind but lonely hearts. The first contact is from some entry-level first-tier scammer who sends out boatloads of emails to whomever. Upon a response, the “Romance” scammer takes over to build trust, using everything he’s got – God,young child(ren) to tuck at our heartstrings, sexual overtures etc. When time is ripe, the “Closer” steps in to help us find our way to Western Union.

This is organized crime. Because they operate outside of N. American soil, there is no way our authorities can indict them. So ladies, please forget about responding to someone out of country. This is the only way these scammers can get us to send money without first checking them out physically to verify the facts. This is why most of you ladies reported having met the scammer on Match.com. It is because Match does such a fine job of shooting off profiles internationally several times a week, practically delivering fodder fish to the piranhas.

I have met numerous good local men online, with real jobs, real homes and real lives. A number of them have become friends or given me business even when a romance did not pan out. There is no need to respond to anyone out of country to find a mate. If we want to use the internet to find a man, we owe it to ourselves to use it wisely and with caution.

Here is a good site for info on scammers: http://romancescams.org/. I learned a lot from there. Just be patient ladies, and all the best. – Helen.

Two days after he fleeced £10k from Val he contacted me using the same alias, sob story and presumably piccy.

He befriended me by email and very nice and said the right things, that his wife had died in a car crash and that his daughter and Mum lived in Japan.

He also stated that he was a construction worker in Nigeria and that he had knocked down a little girl who desparately needed money to finish her treatment otherwise she would die. The pressure was put on me to hand over this money.

He even had the gal to call me and I got quite a shock when he sounded very Nigerian

Alarm bells had been ringing but my compansionate side got the better of me.

Thankfully due to all my friends, family and particulary to my brilliant son he found this website before I parted with anything!

I will be handing over the information I have on this guy to the Police.

LADIES BEWARE YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED TWICE NOW.

Alli

this guy goes by “From: Ryan Gutenberg [mailto:ryangut75@gmail.com]”
another on is Eric who claims to be from NY…works out of the country a lot in Art.

I wish i could remember that one guy who actually had 2 profiles on facebook (are you interested) with 2 different ages. I called him out on it and he said it must be a facebook error. LMAO!

ok….so, what out for these guy, too.

On the 6th September 2009, I was contacted by seemee22 on Match.com, the name he goes by is Terry Ken Hargrave, 42yrs old, lives in London. He told me he has a three yr old (Lucy), her mother died three years ago from child birth. His mother died 10yrs ago and father when he was a child. He said he is a Civil Engineer(Contractor)and has a Swedish acsent. He is still on Match.com as neck79 with a different picture but same profile as seeme22. Terry is using this email address terryken64@yahoo.com.

neck79 is still going by Terry Ken Hargrave thou, when he changed username from seeme22 to neck79 for Match.com it also updated a different photo in my in box, that is when my alarm bells started ringing. I told him that I had stopped Match.com but I lied, lucky I did cause now I am making him work for it.
I told me he has a contract in Nigeria and has taken Lucy with him. He keeps asking me to meet him there in Nigeria. Today he asked me for money as he has not got the currency to pay for a tax fee. Last night I googled his whole name and found him on this fraud site. So I have told him that my money is in investments and cannot get it out, he has asked me to ask someone to lend the money ($5000) to me to send it to him.

He is still ringing me and emailing me, I am hoping to work out a way to get him court. I have emailed Match.com about him and letting as many people I know about him.

Karma will get him one day girls!!!

“Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 3:14 am
Watch out for Jonathan Dolph. He claims to be an American living in the UK but working in West Africa with UNICEF. He has a 15 yr old daughter in the hospital undergoing treatmeant for a car accident that happened 5 years ago. His wife allegedly died in that car accident as well. Both his parents are dead and his sister is 28 yrs old and is a nun. He has pictures that he took from a website called focus agency. http://www.focusagencyhawaii.com/view_male_models.htm. He uses the pictures that are located in commercial and the models name is Casey. When I confronted him about this he says that was during a time in his life that he no longer does that and his nick name is Casey. He tried to get me to send $200 dollars to Joyce Chen in San Francsico and when I did not he got brutal. He told me he loved me within the first week and claimed he wanted to marry me. He deleted everyone from his facebook page. I met him using the application on facebook called Are You Interested. Watch out!”

He called himself Arnold Dolph, dolph_1x@yahoo.com single dad of one son 12 yrs. widowed, dead parents… google the name and you will get an address for him in Houston with a phone #.
office in Houston, Tx in a large complex that also houses “virtual” office space for anonymity.
the link listed in the above quoted report led me to the photos he had sent of his son.
the usual MO- Love in the first 2 weeks, charm, intelligence ( use the term loosely
he asked for gifts and money etc etc.
when called him on it, much tap dancing then the goodbye.
followed by my amazon account being hacked and money taken from my bank account via gift cards to amazon. Beware.
sick puppy~

Needless to say I sent $700. Thursday comes and th emanager is demanding more money and his workers are striking as he does not have emough to pay them. Can I send more? I refuse and we get into a huge arguement over the phone with my son listening in which upsets him greatly. When he pushes me to take out loans & use credit cards etc to help him I remind him I am about to be off for a month with no income and he obviously has no respect for me demanding so much for me as ill as I was. He made one more bid then I hung up.

He has written a couple more times, apologising and professing his love and undying affection yet after reading here and doing a bit more checking on a few other cites… BEWARE DAVID WILLIAMS of Los Angeles, CA, UK, Lagos, Oil Engineer, Civil Engineer, Widow of 2 children, Belgium born having lost his parent at 17 in England.