MY STORY

I am trying to keep a strong facade because I am a pediatrician and I am a single mother and I was almost scammed. My twelve year marriage ended because of alcoholism and abuse, then a two year relationship ended because the guy could not deal with the fact I have a child, then when I thought I was picking up the pieces this guy hammers through my life.

 He posed as Jeffery Roderick from Germany. Civil engineer also, also going to Kuala Lumpur, etc. so far so good. I goggled his pictures and up came a Ukrainian politician. I confronted him. He said he was embarrassed about his looks. Oh, but when he asked for money it became war. I do not have too much to spare, and a kid to put through school. I drove to his supposed house and of course he did not live there. By then I was livid. I have been crying so much, not because of sadness but because of fury. Am I really that desperate for love? The answer is yes, yes I am. And I will never trust anyone ever again; ever.

“MAGA” NIGERIAN SCAMS AMERICAN LOVER N52.5M ON SOCIAL DATING SITE

Posted by: Haliwud

I just returned from a reporting trip to Nigeria, where I was traveling around the country talking to terrorism experts, nomadic cattle herders, and government officials about how global warming affects conflict in the country. I lucked out with an amazing fixer. As a newswire reporter focused on the terrorist group Boko Haram, he was able to provide crucial context for my story. But Michael* also grew up a "street boy," meaning he was able to make fast friends in the slum villages and farming communities we visited. He put himself through college, and after working as a Nigerian soap opera actor and door-to-door men's clothing salesman, he clawed his way into journalism. Before that, he used to hang out with nomadic cow-herding kids, children who sell bottled water by the roadside and budding scam artists. Yes, Nigerian scam artists, like the ones who send you emails purporting to be from an African prince who will pay you to help him move $3 million into your country, and all you have to do is give him your bank account number. I told Michael I wanted to interview his scammer friends. He said there was no way that his dudes would talk for less than $600. Shocker! Of course, at Mother Jones we do not pay for interviews. But I figured I would be doing a public service by distracting the scammers from conning old folks for a couple hours. So I offered $100 for a rare glimpse at the human faces behind the syntax-challenged spam. We settled on $130, and off we went. 

I sat down with Sheye and Danjuma on the back patio of a fancy duplex in an upscale neighbourhood in one of the country's main cities, and the two dished on their craft, constantly interrupting each other as they downed bottles of Nigerian Star lager and chain-smoked. Though they lie for a living, Sheye insisted, "We are telling you the fact and the truth." Sheye and Danjuma have a name for the advance-fee email scams, in which victims agree to send money to a stranger, banking on the promise of love or fast money. They called these cons "Yahoo" jobs, pronounced Ya-OO.

A scam email I received recently.

"We go on the internet; we start making friend with you," Danjuma says, explaining that they trawl Facebook and dating websites incessantly, looking for lonely women with money to spare. He knows if he meets "a Saudi Arabia person," he is in luck. "They do not know what to do with money. Whenever we want to fraud somebody, we will know what you are worth” Danjuma says. “Where are you working?; how much you have in your account.” They glean all this information just by developing a closed relationship with the intending victim. If the mark is worthwhile, the scammer works up "a level of trust," Danjuma continues. "Maybe the person does not have a husband, and the person is looking for a husband in Nigeria. May be you need a black man," he says; his down-sloping eyes very serious.

At that point, the scammer will start to "give [the victim] a process," promising to come visit her, but asking for money to take care of a few things first: "My car has problem," or "My father is in Italy. He did not send money for me." "Because you love me, then you say, 'Okay, Sheye interrupts. "I go and withdraw my money. I keep on enjoying with my girls here." He laughed wildly.

Over the past decade or so, the United States has cracked down on Nigerian Internet scams. Western Union, for example, would not allow me to wire my Nigerian fixer an advance portion of his pay because, the operator told me, I was likely the victim of fraud.

Still, Nigerian fraudsters manage to dupe Americans into forking thousands of dollars over to complete strangers each year. In 2011, the FBI received close to 30,000 reports of advance fee ploys, called "419 scams" after the section of the Nigerian criminal code that outlaws fraud. The agency received over 4,000 complaints of advance fee romance scams in 2012, with victim losses totalling over $55 million. Nigerians are not the only ones committing international advance fee fraud, but nearly one-fifth of all such scams originate in the West African country. The scams often involve phony lottery winnings, job offers, and inheritance notices.

Ten years ago, Sheye and Danjuma, who are both in their mid-30s, say they could make up to $12,000 per Yahoo job, but the "US are very wise" now, Sheye says. They typically only make about $200 per "client" these days, though they know other scammers who still rake in millions of naira through the email schemes. "There is this boy in Kaduna [a city in northern Nigeria] who made over 2 million naira" last year on 419 scams, Danjuma says. "And he is not even 18."

"We are not scared of any Minister or President. We are not scared of him; fuck him." The two fraudsters make most of their money duping fellow Nigerians. (They insist that tricking people is not the same as stealing. "We do not thief," Danjuma says.) They told me about one elaborate scam, called Elawala (or "Let us go" in Igbo, one of the languages spoken in Nigeria), that they occasionally pull on their countrymen. It involves a taxi cab, a "juju man," magic charms, and a huge bag of cash (and it is way too complicated to explain here). Another go-to scam involves a taxi cab, a French man, a locked box filled with gold and very expensive pliers. They asked to hire me out for a day for one of their cons because, they said my white skin would bolster their credibility. "Black man believes that white man is real," Danjuma explains.

They make a tidy living. Sheye and Danjuma say they are each worth about $60,000, in a country where more than 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day. They say they have made a lot more than that, but they blow much of their income entertaining "clients" in order to convince the victims they are legit. They fly potential marks to Ghana and put them up in a fancy hotel while they meet with Sheye and Danjuma's faux business partners there. Since Ghana is a less corrupt country, they say, victims are more likely to enter into a business deal with a Ghanaian than a Nigerian. The two say they own homes worth about a quarter million dollars each.

The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is tasked with cracking down on con men like these. So is Interpol. The duo says they are able to skirt law enforcement because they have a lot of people on their payroll. "They are all criminals," Danjuma explains. They estimate that 30 percent of their earnings go to what they call "security" that is, the payment of bribes. "We are not scared of any Minister or President," Danjuma says, his words slightly slurred by the third 20-ounce bottle of Star. "We are not scared of him; Fuck him." They justify what they do by claiming that the highest levels of the Nigerian government are ridden with scammers. The fancy neighbourhood where we meet backs up against a slum village. We take a stroll through it after the interview. The shack homes are constructed of used plastic cement bags tied to sticks. Feral dogs scamper around. A rivulet of garbage and water runs down the central dirt road.

"The money [the government] should have used to construct this road, they are using for personal use," Sheye says. "That is why we are bad boys."

Culled from www.motherjones.com

REPORT FROM SALT LAKE CITY ON ROMANCE SCAM

Carl Estep found his way into the hearts and pocketbooks of women through online church dating sites. During an undercover meeting with Estep, the FBI Salt Lake City Division caught him on camera declaring that he was just a ranch kid from Idaho who had worked hard for every dime he had earned. After that law enforcement operation, Estep went to prison convicted of swindling two women he met on the Internet out of more than $300,000. According to the FBI, "romance scams" are a crime that can break the hearts and banks of women. Annual reports released by the Internet Crimes Complaint Center show female complainants have lost $80 million in the past two years to such schemes.

KSL gathered a group of tech-savvy women who have used online dating sites to find out how to identify the scam artists. "It is daunting when you first try it," one of the panelists said. Stories of the women's online dating experiences ranged from the bizarre one man who said he wanted to date a woman who would consider a polygamist lifestyle to other encounters that were more dangerous. "He would come to me and used his physicality and his bigness to overtake me quite scary and I had to pretty much run," another panelist said. "I do not think I have had any horrible experiences, but I have had some disappointing experiences where people misrepresented who they were," another woman said.

According to a Pew Internet and American Life study, 54 percent of online daters have felt that someone else seriously misrepresented themselves in their profile. "I told him, 'I am not going to tell you where I live.' He said, 'I already know where you live.' "

28 percent of people polled said they had been contacted by someone in a way that made them feel uncomfortable. Several of the panelists said it had happened to them. "Just today a man said he was married and looking for someone on the side and I had to gracefully decline," a panelist said. "I will check to see if they are a registered sex offender." These women said they recognize that delving into world of digital dating comes with its share of risks. One of them discovered that she learned her Facebook pictures revealed more than she realized. She said she thought she was taking extra precautions by not posting her address or where her online photographs geo-tagged. However, she said the man who was courting her online, figured out her location all on his own. "I told him, ‘I am not going to tell you where I live.' He said, ‘I already know where you live.' "

Another panelist said she recently met a man on Facebook she knew was too good to be true, but she was surprised at what KSL had uncovered when reporters started investigating the man who claimed his name was Harry Smith. Using a website called www.Romancescam.com, KSL learned the e-mail she had received originated in Nigeria and the photo he had sent her was really a picture of a male model. Other online schemers had also used the same model's photograph with several different names. The panelists said there are ways to be successful in online dating and they offered helpful advice for women to avoid being scammed. They suggested not allowing a relationship to drag on over the Internet and if someone refuses to meet, it is typically a sign it is a scam. For safety reasons, the panelists also said not to give out a home address and instead to meet someone during the day in a public place. They also suggested letting family or friends know where you will be and when the date will end. Each of the women pointed out many of the risks that exist online also exist offline, but there are more chances to meet people online. "I have had a lot of good experiences where it has gone somewhere and lead to a relationship," a panelist said.

LOTTERY SCAM

A business owner in Parnell has been tricked out of more than $1000 after being targeted by an on-going scam in which victims are offered gift vouchers from Countdown supermarkets. But Fashion designer Natalie Chan has taken matters into her own hands, outing the alleged scammers on social media. She believes the offenders were two customers who visited her shop yesterday. When reviewing security camera footage Ms. Chan noticed one of the customers take her wallet from her bag before leaving.

Shortly after they left Ms. Chan received a phone call, she did not know at this point her wallet had been stolen. The caller told Ms. Chan she had won a $500 prize from Countdown and needed to provide a security pin to verify the prize. After giving the woman a random combination of numbers, Ms. Chan was told they would verify the prize. "I got a call back 5 minutes later. She politely and professionally apologies [sic] for the inconvenience and asked for more numbers as they said it did not match my One card," she posted on Facebook.

After further questioning Ms. Chan finally gave up her bank pin number. It was only this morning she realized she had been scammed after a concerned friend contacted her. "Sure enough, l checked my bank account and my EFTPOS account is all cleaned out." Ms. Chan has posted security camera images on social media, in an attempt to stop it from happening again. Several other retailers told Ms. Chan that the scam has been happening since January. A neighbouring Parnell shop owner told her two women who appear in her security footage have been seen around the community. Ms. Chan says she feels stupid and angry about the incident. She has contacted the police but does not feel they are giving the matter the attention it deserves. "It is just infuriating. It is not just me, it is someone else. Police have got to get onto this; does someone have to be killed to get police moving? I want justice and victory," says Ms. Chan.  She has the names of the two women allegedly involved and has taken her security footage to the police, who have stated their investigation is on-going and they are following several lines of inquiry. Countdown says it is not running a promotion offering grocery hampers and it would never ask customers to give out their confidential pin numbers.

SOME TOP TIPS TO HELP YOU ENJOY SAFE ONLINE DATING

 

• Trust your instincts: If you think or feel things are not going the way they ought to be, back out from such relationship.
• Choose a site that will protect your anonymity until you choose to reveal personal information and that will enforce its policies against inappropriate use.
• Be sure to run a Google image search on the photos in profiles you receive, to ensure they have not been stolen to create a fake profile.
• Do not post personal information, such as phone numbers, on dating sites.
• Never send money or give credit card or online account details to anyone you do not know and trust.
• Wait until you feel comfortable with an individual before telling them things like; your phone number, place of work or address.
• Be extremely wary about removing clothes or doing other things in front of your webcam that could be used against you; even if you think you know the other party
• Use a dating site that offers the ability to email prospective dates using a service that conceals both parties’ true email addresses
• Set up a separate email account that does not use your real name.
• Make sure your phone number is ‘blocked’ to people you contact on dating sites
• Pick a user name that does not include any personal information.
• Finally, do not meet your date in a hidden place. Let people be around where you are meeting.

 Culled from: http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk

REPORT FROM GILBERT

Gilbert police are cautioning residents to be aware of a phone scammer who calls and identifies himself as a police officer. The man tells potential victims that they have outstanding arrest warrants, traffic fines or photo radar tickets, said Sgt. Jesse Sanger, a Gilbert Police spokesman. The scammer threatens victims with suspension of their driver's licenses if they do not pay the fines over the phone, Sanger said. The caller provides the victim's name and home address and instructs the victim to pay over the phone with a credit card or a Green Dot prepaid Visa or MasterCard, Sanger said.

Gilbert Police and Gilbert Municipal Court warn residents that they will never ask a person to submit payment over the phone. Sanger said that if the person behind the scam is caught and convicted, victims might receive restitution. However, Sanger said most phone scams originate from out of the country, making it difficult to catch and prosecute the culprit. Gilbert Police ask residents to report any scam calls that they might receive. If a resident questions the authenticity of a call, he or she is encouraged to call the Gilbert Police non-emergency phone number, 480-503-6500.

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PHONE SCAM III

Criminals masquerading as Internal Revenue Service agents have bilked more than $1 million from thousands of taxpayers in the largest such phone scam the IRS has seen, the agency's watchdog said Thursday. J. Russell George, Treasury inspector general for tax administration, said more than 20,000 taxpayers have been targeted by bogus tax agents who claim victims owe taxes and demand they pay with a prepaid debit card or by wire transfer. The thieves tell victims they could be arrested, deported or lose their business or driver's license if they refuse, George said in a news release, the latest in the agency's year-long awareness campaign. Taxpayers who owe are generally contacted first by mail, and bona fide IRS agents never insist on payment by debit card or wire transfer, and they do not ask for credit card numbers over the phone.

The agency began warning last March of a "dirty dozen" tax scams, including the one involving fake agents calling taxpayers. Complaints, mostly from immigrants, began coming into the inspector general's hotline in August and has expanded since then. Residents of nearly every state were targeted, George said.  IRS releases 'Dirty Dozen' tax scams for 2014. On Halloween, acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel warned of a "pervasive telephone scam." "If someone unexpectedly calls claiming to be from the IRS and threatens police arrest, deportation or license revocation if you do not pay immediately, that is a sign that it really is not the IRS calling," Werfel said in the news release.

Another warning came a week later. The thieves spoof caller ID to appear to be calling from the IRS, and often know the last four digits of a target's Social Security number, he said. They also use common names, fake badge numbers and follow up with official-looking e-mails. "This is the largest scam of its kind that we have ever seen," George said. "The increasing number of people receiving these unsolicited calls from individuals who fraudulently claim to represent the IRS is alarming." The IG's office is working with major phone carriers to try to track the origins of the calls, which investigators believe are connected.
Contributing: The Associated Press

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REPORT FROM DAKOTA COUNTY ON PHONE SCAM

Authorities are warning about a phone scam from people claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service that have allegedly bilked people out of thousands of dollars. The apparent scammers hoped one of their victims would have been Tim Leslie, of Dakota County, last week. Leslie received a phone message from a man who said Leslie improperly filed his taxes and if he did not give them money, the IRS would bring criminal charges against him. "This is Special Agent Sean White with badge No. 7656," said the man in a foreign accent. "One copy of this case will be sent to your local sheriff department and one copy will be sent to your employer where you work right now to inform them of your fraudulent activity."

Here is the story, Leslie works for the Dakota County Sheriff's Office. In fact, he is the chief deputy and is running for sheriff. "He was very belligerent on phone," Leslie said. “And finally I said, I am going to look into this further and I will be the one calling back you.  He did not like that so he hung up on me" said Leslie. Leslie then called a friend at the IRS who connected him with an investigator with the agency. "He indicated they have had 60,000 of these across the United States and some folks have lost over $10,000 to these people," he said. A quick Google search confirms just a day ago news of a woman in Illinois who apparently got scammed out of $11,000 from someone claiming to be from the IRS. The scammers typically demand pre-paid debit cards, known as Green Dot cards. "No one in the government is going to ask you to go and get a Green Dot card," said Leslie. KARE 11 tried to contact "Special Agent White" Friday afternoon but got a voice message from a guy calling himself "Officer Jason Clark" who sounded a lot like White. He has yet to return our message. "No one would ever do that in law enforcement," said Leslie of the scammer. That is why he is telling people to trust their instincts. If it sounds weird, it probably is. "Trust your gut, absolutely," he said. Below is a portion of a statement from the IRS providing tips on how to spot a scam and what to do if you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the agency.

Scammers use fake names and IRS badge numbers. They generally use common names and surnames to identify themselves.

Scammers may be able to recite the last four digits of a victim's Social Security number.

Scammers spoof the IRS toll-free number on caller ID to make it appear that it's the IRS calling.

Scammers sometimes send bogus IRS emails to some victims to support their bogus calls.

Victims hear background noise of other calls being conducted to mimic a call site.

After threatening victims with jail time or driver's license revocation, scammers hang up and others soon call back pretending to be from the local police or DMV, and the caller ID supports their claim.

However, if you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, here is what you should do:

If you know you owe taxes or you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 1.800.829.1040. The IRS employees at that line can help you with a payment issue, if there really is such an issue.

If you know you do not owe taxes or have no reason to think that you owe any taxes (for example, you have never received a bill or the caller made some bogus threats as described above), then call and report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1.800.366.4484.

If you have been targeted by this scam, you should also contact the Federal Trade Commission and use their "FTC Complaint Assistant" at FTC.gov. Please add "IRS Telephone Scam" to the comments of your complaint.

      Taxpayers should be aware that there are other unrelated scams (such as a lottery sweepstakes) and solicitations (such as debt relief) that fraudulently claim to be from the IRS. The IRS encourages taxpayers to be vigilant against phone and email scams that use the IRS as a lure. The IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers by email to request personal or financial information. This includes any type of electronic communication, such as text messages and social media channels. The IRS also does not ask for PINs, passwords or similar confidential access information for credit card, bank or other financial accounts. Recipients should not open any attachments or click on any links contained in the message. Instead, forward the e-mail to phishing@irs.gov. More information on how to report phishing scams involving the IRS is available on the genuine IRS website, IRS.gov.

PHONE SCAM II

On Wednesday, an IRS agent said they needed to talk to Barbara Novak right away.

"There were two very nasty calls from people saying they were officers of the IRS and that we needed to call them right away," Novak said. I called them and (they) said I had not paid my taxes in four years. But the 60-year-old Beekman resident said she knew it was scam right away, she said. She told them she knew they were scammers, and that she planned to report them to the Better Business Bureau. A summer spike in telephone scams that target senior citizens is not unusual, warned state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. "To prevent senior citizens from becoming victims of fraud and abuse, we must empower them with information they can use to protect themselves," Schneiderman said via a news release. Schneiderman identified IRS phone scams as one of five of the most common scams, based on complaints and other evidence collected by his office. Novak said the callers told her they would not call again. "I have an accountant," she said. "I did call our accountant," who said another person got a similar call. The caller had a foreign accent and the call came from a Washington, D.C.-based area code, Novack added. Beth Finkel, state director for AARP, said fraud cost the nation's elderly an estimated $2.9 billion in 2011. AARP's free Fraud Watch Network provides information to people of all ages and assistance to victims.

TYPICAL SCAMS

Grandparent scam: A senior might receive an urgent phone call from someone who claims to be a grandchild who has an emergency, is out of town and needs money fast. The caller begs the grandparent not to tell his parents and to wire money quickly. Scammers might use actual relatives' names and information they get from social media.

Jury duty scam: The caller will claim to be a court officer and say there is a warrant for the victim's arrest, for failing to report for jury duty. The caller also claims that there is a fine for not showing up, and that unless the fine is paid immediately, via Green Dot Card Money Card or Western Union MoneyGram, the victim will be arrested.

Lottery scam: The caller claims a person won a foreign lottery and requests that the "winner" wire money or send a check to cover taxes and fees. Legitimate contests do not request money upfront. The caller might ask for bank information, claiming they want to direct deposit winnings electronically.

IRS scam: The caller says they are an IRS agent or police officer calling about a past due tax balance. Unless the debt is paid immediately with a Green Dot Card Money Card or Western Union MoneyGram, officers will arrest the victim that day, the caller claims. These scammers might use caller ID hacks, so that the ID name or number appears to be that of the IRS.

Utility scam: The caller claims to be a local utility provider representative; sometimes, they have the victim's correct account number and may have obtained personal information via social media. They tell the resident that they have to pay a late utility bill immediately, via Green Dot Card Money Card or Western Union MoneyGram, or service will be cut.

Culled from: Poughkeepsie Journal

REPORT ON CYBERCRIME

"The bad guys are winning," according to Verizon's 2014 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) that says there is large increase in cyber-crime, the report's lead author Wade Baker says. But somehow that is not all bad news?  According to the authors, this year more than 63,000 security incidents were analyzed, but the high figure should not be too intimidating:  The dataset that underpins the DBiR is comprised of over 63,000 confirmed security incidents (Sixty-Three Thousand). That rather intimidating number is a by-product of another shift in philosophy with this year’s report; we are no longer restricting our analysis only to confirmed data breaches. This evolution of the DBiR reflects the experience of many security practitioners and executives who know that an incident need not result in data ex-filtration for it to have a significant impact on the targeted business. Of these 63,000 incidents, just 1,367 were confirmed data breaches affecting 95 countries. 

The report, which has been compiled by Verizon's security arm every year for the last decade, finds that 97 percent of crimes fall into nine categories of security breaches, including point of sales intrusions, web app attacks, cyber espionage, insider misuse, card skimmers, DOS attacks, crimeware, miscellaneous errors and physical theft. 

Courtesy of Verizon

According to the DBIR, point of sale, or POS, intrusions have actually gone down since 2011, falling from 31 percent of all breaches to 14 percent. This means that shoppers' information is less likely to be accessed when they make their purchases, which should be somewhat comforting. (However, Target's massive breach last winter, probably the biggest of the year, was essentially a point of sale attack. The report also breaks down which industries are most vulnerable to which types of theft: 

Courtesy of Verizon

The breakdown of these crimes also suggests that hackers are more interested in intellectual property than actual property. Re/code's Arik Hesseldahl explains:  While fraud and financial motivations still tend to dominate the spectrum of reasons behind cyber-crime, believe it or not, they declined as a proportion of the whole in 2013. Meanwhile, attempts to steal intellectual property rose, Jacobs said. “It is not all about money any more but who has the intellectual property,” he said.  Hesseldahl notes that these are often inside jobs, crimes perpetrated by company employees stealing proprietary information to set up a rival business. Web app hacking is also on the rise, but 65 percent of those are motivated by "ideology or fun." 

Concurringly, cyber-crime is also on the rise against countries especially the U.S. in the form of on-line espionage. Espionage-related hacking was traced back to Chinese and East Asian residents in 49 percent of cases, but Eastern European hackers are gaining ground, launching about one-fifth of overall espionage attacks in 2013. And, to make matters worse, hackers are able to access data faster than in previous years. The report authors note that though more cases of espionage were catalogued and the latest DBIR, this could just be because Verizon looked at more data sources in the most recent report. 

Though the report is something of a mixed bag, Baker warns that the threat of cyber-crime is increasing overall. "After analyzing 10 years of data, we realize most organizations cannot keep up with cyber-crime and the bad guys are winning," he said, but added that "by applying big data analytic to security risk management, we can begin to bend the curve and combat cyber-crime more effectively and strategically." The authors offer basic protections for individuals and companies, some of them as simple as using two-step verification and keeping your system up to date.

This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/technology/2014/04/report-shows-cyber-espionage-is-on-the-rise/361024/

ONLINE DATING RELATIONSHIP ENDS BADLY, LOST TOTAL SUM OF $1.3M

Canadians looking for love online are falling prey to the country’s most lucrative scam. Ellen, now 65, whose true identity is being protected, says she lost $1.3 million after she began sending money to "Dave," whom she had met on a dating site. Ellen was retired, living a comfortable life in a nice home in British Columbia. In the driveway was a luxury car, and her house was paid for. And then she joined an online dating site, hoping to find some companionship. Instead of romance, Ellen says she lost her life savings, and more over $1.3 million seemingly taken by an online scam where villains prey on people looking for their perfect partner.

Ellen, victim of $1.3 million on-line scam

Ellen’s is a story that is hard to believe, and even more difficult to comprehend. How could a mature, self-sufficient woman send such a huge sum of money to someone she never even met? She reported the loss to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, and is now their biggest recorded victim of so-called romance fraud a new take on the Nigerian email scam. Romance frauds are the most lucrative scam in Canada. Over the past four years, Canadians have reported losses of almost $50 million to authorities. And the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre thinks only a small percentage of victims tell anyone what happened to them. Behind the flowery words and promises of love, an investigation by CTV’s W5 and the Star has discovered, are criminal gangs, many in West Africa, running dozens of cons at once.

“What we are dealing with is organized crime,” says Daniel Williams of the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. “No one is doing this to one person. For the one person that contacts us about it, there are 15 who have not, and 30 who will be scammed in future.”

Ellen, now 65, says there is nothing left. It is a complicated tale, which she traces back to October 2010, when a girlfriend urged her to try online dating. Why not thought Ellen, even though she had previously dipped her toe in the pool of men online, and found them wanting.  She was single; her kids were grown and had lives of their own. So Ellen who agreed to speak to the Star only on condition of anonymity says she signed up to Match.com. “I thought it would be fun just to banter back and forth with somebody,” she says. The man she says she met online called himself Dave Field. His picture was that of a somewhat handsome, balding middle-aged man. As Ellen and “Dave” chatted online and occasionally on the phone, she says she told her he was of Swedish descent and was living in Los Angeles.  His accent was a bit off, she thought, but still. Ellen says she was intrigued. Since Los Angeles is not far from B.C. So Ellen approached the idea of meeting up, and “Dave” seemed keen.  “I said, ‘If there was no chance of you coming to Canada, I will come to L.A.,’ ” she recalls. “He did not balk at that.”  But when she booked her ticket, she says, things changed. He was busy. He had appointments. She cancelled the reservation. A few weeks later, she tried again. Again, he dodged her.  “So I just put it on the line and said, ‘What is up with this? Why are we playing games?’ ” Ellen recalls. “He said, ‘It is not a game.’ And what was the excuse? He was trying to unravel his father’s estate.”

That is when it appears the scam began in earnest. Ellen says “Dave” told her he had been left a sizeable inheritance offshore, but because of a lawyer’s incompetence, he had to clear some debts before he could sell the assets.

“I am of the nature that I would help anybody,” Ellen says. “I do not like the idea of not being able to help somebody if I can.” Emails from “Dave” to Ellen, which she provided to the Star, use endearments like; “baby,” “honey” and “sweetheart,” and end with “hugs, kisses and love.” Ellen says she was not head-over-heels for him which would make her different from many other victims of romance scams and by the end of the con; she just wanted her money back. She says she tried to send the first sum of $945 via Western Union, but the employee refused: “She said to me, ‘Do you know this person? If you don’t know this person, don’t send it. I’m not sending it.’ ”

Ellen found another way: by MoneyGram. Eventually, she says, “Dave” would give her bank account numbers and she would wire him or people purporting to act for him wire transfers for tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, at a time. (Documentation provided by Ellen shows transfers of roughly $1.3 million, in U.S. dollars, euros and British pounds.)

It appears the cash flowed out of Ellen’s investment account and into accounts in Hong Kong, Greece, Singapore and directly to Lagos, Nigeria. She says she travelled to London and Madrid to meet people who “Dave” said would get her money back and each time came home with a diminished bank balance. Ellen says she sent the first few thousand to help “Dave” out and the rest followed as an attempt to get back the money she had lost. “It was, ‘You have already sent me this money how am I supposed to pay you back if we do not go to the next step?’ ” Ellen says he told her. “And at one point I said, ‘If this keeps up, I am going to be bankrupt.’ ”

Even Ellen is at a loss to explain how an adult, who says she had accumulated a tidy nest egg by growing an inheritance through canny property purchases, could be taken in by the fraudsters. “It is like I was living in a fog,” Ellen says. “I just felt as though I was in a fog, for months and months on end.” Ellen says her fog lifted when a male relative told her point-blank that she was being conned. She ultimately reported a loss of $1.332 million to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, which compiles information and forwards it to law enforcement for investigation.

They referred her case to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in B.C. Authorities there are unable to confirm what happened to that complaint. People familiar with romance frauds say that it is generally not one person running a scam so someone like “Dave” was probably several different people. (“When we hear consumers say, ‘he’ or ‘she,’ we say it is not a man. It’s not a woman,” Williams says. “It’s a dozen people working the keyboard.”) Many romance frauds end before the losses run as high as Ellen says hers was, but that does not mean they are less significant, and not just in financial terms. Because the victims believe they are in a real relationship, they have not just lost their money: they have also lost a boyfriend or girlfriend, and the future that person had promised them.

 “Never make a payment. Never!! That first payment is the hook,” she says. “I wish I could shake people.”

By: Jennifer Quinn News reporter, Robert Cribb Foreign.

PHONE SCAM

Every time Robyn Hewetson's phone rings she feels a pang of dread, after a phone scammer claiming to be from the FBI repeatedly harassed her. Robyn Hewetson, 63, lives in Hastings and describes herself as a fairly robust woman. But her confidence was shaken last week when she received more than 20 phone calls from a "very aggressive and agitated" man with an Indian accent. Now Ms Hewetson is changing her telephone number, which is "a big deal" for the speech and drama therapist as it may have an impact on her business. "This has gotten nasty. It is not just a scam that I can say no to. "It feels personal." The calls began last Monday and are understood to be part of a phone scam that has been around for about six years. "He called and said, 'You have a Windows laptop with a virus and we need to help you fix it'." Ms Hewetson had told the man she did not have a Windows laptop, which seemed to enrage him. The man, who had an Indian accent and knew Ms Hewetson's name, had called back "again and again" throughout the night. He had told Ms Hewetson he could see her on a screen. The calls persisted on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, as the man called about seven times each day. "On Wednesday I said I'd call the police and he just jeered at me.” It is always the same man. He is very nasty." On Thursday night Ms Hewetson, after hanging up on the man multiple times, asked him: 'Who are you and why are you calling'?" The man had responded in an ominous voice: "I am from the F-B-I." "By Thursday night, I was unsettled," Ms Hewetson said. "I went to bed and his voice was in my head. I felt invaded and insecure." Ms Hewetson dialled 111 and spoke to the police, who advised her to take her phone off the hook.

She is not the only person in the region to receive repeated calls from a computer virus scammer. Hawke's Bay Today received an overwhelming response via Facebook from readers who had received similar calls, often after 10pm. "We get them up to three times a week. Last week the guy actually sang "Liar liar pants on fire" on the phone. I could not believe it." "We get one a day for over a year." NumberCop CEO Jan Volzke, who tracks phone scams worldwide, told Hawke's Bay Today the scam was "without doubt among the top five most active and longest scam campaigns we are tracking in our systems".

"It is been going on since 2008 in the US, but now expanded across multiple countries.

"They [the scammers] mostly use Microsoft brand names." A Ministry of Consumer Affairs spokesman said computer virus scams were usually run from overseas call centres. "You will be called at home by somebody claiming to be from a technical support company. The caller will tell you that your computer has a virus. They will ask you to log on to your computer and to download a piece of software. This gives them remote access to your PC." They would then access personal details like email addresses and bank or credit card details. "If someone calls you out of the blue to say your computer has a virus, just hang up. “Do not be intimidated by the callers, who can become very aggressive. Do not try to get any details from them. Just hang up." On Saturday Ms Hewetson took her phone off the hook and went away for the night. The strategy seemed to have paid off as she received no calls yesterday.

EARLY WARNING SIGNALS

             

My intense research in the last two weeks came out with positive responses. In the course of my inquiry, some of the victims shared step by step of how they are being scammed. I think it will be of benefit to share the information with others. Here are some tips on early warning signals which show that you are potential victim of online dating scam

• They want to communicate with you through instant messaging and, texts, rather than through the dating website or chat room where you met.
• They ask you lots of questions about yourself but do not tell you much about themselves.
• They quickly start calling you by a pet name or use endearing terms such as ‘darling’
• They do not answer basic questions about where they live and work
• Their profile picture is too perfect; for example they look like an actor or Miss World titleholder
• They start asking you to send them money using a number of different scenarios such as:
1. Claiming to be military personnel based overseas who require funds for flights home or early discharge from the forces.
2. Citing medical related issues they need money for such as a sudden need for surgery, either for the fraudster or the fraudster’s family member.
3. They’ve arranged to visit you but need money to pay travel costs

         CEO of Get Safe Online, Tony Neate added: “There is nothing better than meeting someone special and falling in love and online dating sites are a great way to do this. Unfortunately, there are groups of people out there that want to take advantage of this for their own ends. It is upsetting to see that online daters are losing so much money to romance fraud, especially the individual who lost £850,000.  The actual figure is likely to be much more though, as we strongly believe that this type of fraud is the most under reported as people are just too embarrassed to come forward.  "We are not saying do not go on these sites, we are just urging people to stay vigilant and if you spot any of the tell-tale signs we have highlighted, definitely let your head rule your heart!”

Culled from: http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk