I am always shocked by folks who fail for Nigerian Internet schemes or web cons. The saddest, however, are the ones (as we have seen) that prey upon people looking for companions. A 48-year-old Naperville man has added himself to that lonely hearts club after giving $200,000 to a fake “girlfriend” whom he only knew over the Internet.
The man had a 2 1/2-year online relationship with the woman and wired the money to different bank accounts in Nigeria, Malaysia, England and the United States. The money was needed to rescue her from a variety of “sticky situations,” but the man was then told she had been kidnapped. He went to the police to ask them to help him find the woman and said he wanted to contact Scotland Yard to search and secure her release.
He was shocked to learn that she was not real and that she had shown him a sample driver’s license from Florida.
I still do not understand why we cannot do a better job in tracing this money or arranging stings. This is a case where the scam was ongoing and money was being sent to existing accounts before the man was told the truth about the cyber honeytrap.
I don’t think we face reality in the United States. Most people are trying to survive while a rich man is trying to pay for love. People would always get scammed as long as we only focus on the scammers. We do not have control over some scams but we need to focus on scams we can control. The Naperville man decided to spend over $200,000 on a female he didn’t even get the chance to meet. He is dumb for spending over $200,000 on a female. You can date online without spending and we do not really know if the story is 100% true.
Imagine a factory that makes things and they save ALL their scrap. That’s right they get rid of NONE of it…imagine what it would look like in a few years…
Now imagine a society that did the same thing…
One of the key problem is the total lack of action from the networks of the related countries. Internet cafes are full of scammers making a job of writing such emails, it is known, it is traceable, but it just makes too much money.
Blouise \,
Ditto on that…
To me, this is of a typical coping mechanism response to the sort of socialization trauma which is at the core of my bioengineering work?
This Illinois resident does not have the $200,000 to send to a fake girl friend, no matter how sticky her situation is. However, if this Naperville man wants to pay my mortgage, I will help him find his sticky friend!
Any of you male, or female, posters out there who have a spare $200,000 available … I can be a really good fake and non-existent girlfriend.
I feel his pain…. The professor makes a valid point…. and if the ability to accurately cuber accounts for terrorists funding why can’t this be done?
Ah yes, priority…
At what point would one go: ‘screw this needy biatch’?