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Am I Being Scammed
Title: AM I BEING SCAMMED!
Post by: Turboguy on June 30, 2006, 10:34:10 PM
The Travel and Visa Scam

This scam is second in popularity only to the Nigerian scam. It goes like this. You are a member of a Singles site that primarily deals in American women. Then you get this awesome letter from a Russian gal. You never really thought about Russian women but the photo with this letter knocks you right out of your chair. An American gal who looks like that would not even spit on you. Wow, her letter is sweet and romantic and she says she is coming to America. She has a work visa or a tourist visa or a student visa. She has her airfare but would like to find a husband. She thinks you are a hunk and offers to come and spend the 90 days with you, no strings. What do you have to loose, wow. All she wants to do is share your bed and your life and to make you happy. The follow up letters get more romantic and sexier. The photos get better and better. Maybe swimsuit or even more revealing.

They usually use sites like Match.com or Yahoo because the need to find suckers that don’t know how hard it is for a Russian to get a visa to come to America. Here is something to think about. Sites like Match.com will let you post a profile for free but you can’t contact anyone without a membership. You can’t get a membership without a credit card. How many Russian gals do you know with a credit card?

Actually you many not even be writing a gal. Often they scan models photos or buy photos of models to use. A good scammer can write at least 800 guys a day and some hit 3000. Once you get your hopes up (and anything else that goes up in anticipation) you get a frantic letter. Her wallet was stolen, the airfare went up, or they are telling her she must have cash to show at the immigration checkpoint which she did not know about. Whatever the excuse she needs you to send some money. Once you do, you will never hear from her again.


Title: Re: AM I BEING SCAMMED!
Post by: Turboguy on June 30, 2006, 10:35:03 PM
The Travel Scam Version 2

This one may not be exclusive to the newbies. You start to write a very pretty gal who seems to be really into you. Her letters are romantic and sweet. The photos are beautiful and she seems like a very sincere and caring gal who in her letters has fallen totally in love with you. You start to talk about a meeting. She is sure you two are right and wants the meeting to be romantic and special. Someplace like Paris or Venice where it would be like a dream for the two of you. What the heck, a week or two with a gal like that in a place like that sounds wonderful. Yes, lets meet in Paris. She is excited but tells you the only way she can get the visa is to have a local travel agency arrange her tickets and they can do the visa too. She might even tell you they can put it on your credit card so if anything goes wrong you can get a refund. What do you have to loose. Well your identity for one. This is often a ploy people doing identity theft use, Otherwise you will just end up with a few thousand dollars of fake charges and of course you will never hear from her again.


Title: Re: AM I BEING SCAMMED!
Post by: Turboguy on June 30, 2006, 10:35:37 PM
The Travel Scam, Version 3

You are on a quest for a Russian wife and using a site like FreePersonals or she may contact you. Nice gal, pretty, just what you hoped to find. She lives in Kirov Russia. Do a search on Mapquest and you will find there are 8 places named Kirov. She may even be a little vague about where it is, maybe not. You want to visit her but there is no airport anywhere within 500 miles of her town. Don’t worry. She will ride the train for 20 hours and meet you in Moscow. Of course she works in a low paying job so you need to send her the money for the train tickets. Heck it is only $ 150.00 why not? Of course once you send the money, you will never hear from her again.



Title: Re: AM I BEING SCAMMED!
Post by: Turboguy on June 30, 2006, 10:37:15 PM
The Reseller

This scam is hard to detect. Often you fall for it and when it is all over and you are back home you start to put it together. Sometimes you realize it in time. Many times but not always it is a case of an ahhh older guy with a pretty young gal.

You are writing this gal and she is really great. Pretty, young, nice figure and everything you hope to find. She seems serious so you start to talk about a meeting. There are so many variations on this that I will cover quite a range. You decide to visit her in her town. She is excited. She tells you she will help you find the most beautiful apartment in her town. She will cook all your meals to save you money and to show you what a good cook she is. She will meet you at the airport she will do everything for you.

You arrive in town. She is there waiting for you with a big smile and a kiss on the cheek. You take the car to the apartment building and see a really nice apartment. You pay the landlady $ 90.00 a night for your apartment and go off to the super market for groceries. She wants you to eat like a king so you come away with a big shopping cart full of goodies. Of course she asks for a few personal items and there is a ton of make up and things like that in the cart. You check out and the bill comes to $ 200.00. That is a lot of groceries for 5 days but she wants you to eat like a king. She has told you she is a nurse and makes only $ 70.00 a month but she works with sick kids and even though she could make more in another profession she loves helping the kids. Your heart melts. She is a dream.

While you are there so you have something to do she takes you to the video store and you buy some videos with American subtitles. She needs a phone card. Her cell phone breaks on your third day there. (happens a lot if you don’t put them on the charger) You buy her a new cell phone. She asks for a few things, usually most of it small. Most of it, if you think about, it never comes out of the package.

The tone while you are there is warm but not quite as romantic as you pictured. You may walk around town arm in arm. She may sit close to you. You may end the nights with a kiss on the cheek, maybe a real kiss but not more. You go home thinking she was really wonderful and you were happy you could help her a little but the chemistry was just not there.

So what was in it for her. Well she got a $ 40.00 a night kickback on the apartment. She got about $ 120.00 worth of stuff left from the super market. A $ 225.00 cell phone. DVDs that are worth maybe e$ 30.00 A phone card worth $ 20.00 that you never saw her open. Other odds and ends worth another $ 50 or so. Add it all up and it was about $ 500.00 for 5 evenings of being stuck with you. Not bad for a gal who claims she makes $ 70.00 a month. It won’t be long after you fly out until the next sucker flies in.



Title: Re: AM I BEING SCAMMED!
Post by: Turboguy on June 30, 2006, 10:37:55 PM
The Pro Dater

You meet a gal who has it all, beauty, brains, sophistication. She is a first class girl who like to live first class. She likes expensive restaurants, exotic vacations, nice jewelry and all the finer things life has to offer. If you book her into a 4 star hotel she will complain if there is a 5 star hotel available. She is not looking for a husband in reality. She is looking for the high life. She will have a string of guys so as soon as she is done touring Venice with you she will be off to Paris with someone else. The good part is you may get lucky. The bad part is a hooker would be cheaper and you are wasting your time and your money.



Title: Re: AM I BEING SCAMMED!
Post by: Turboguy on June 30, 2006, 10:38:45 PM
The Professional Fiancée

These gals really know how to work the angles. When you first meet her she may say something like. I would never ask a man for money but if he did not offer to help me when I need it I would think he was not interested. Her English is only fair so since she is going to be your wife she wants you to send her $ 200.00 a month for English lessons. She may need other things from time to time. Often these gals are stringing along 5 to 10 guys all sending her $ 200.00 a month for English lessons and a little more from time to time. If it gets real serious she will vanish.



Title: Re: AM I BEING SCAMMED!
Post by: Turboguy on June 30, 2006, 10:39:10 PM
The Problem Girl

You write nice gal and after you have been writing a while she will start talking about her daughter being sick, or a car wreck, or dental problems, loosing her job, not getting her paycheck or anything she can not handle on her own. Can you help her out? When she has what she thinks she can get she will be gone.



Title: Re: AM I BEING SCAMMED!
Post by: Turboguy on June 30, 2006, 10:40:10 PM
The E-Mail Scam

You write a gal and she says she can not write often because the internet is so expensive or she will have to stop writing because she had run up an $ 80.00 bill at the internet café and they will not let her use the internet more until she pays her bill. She may ask for $ 3-5 a letter to so she can pay for her internet. Internet cafes in the FSU are around $ 1-2.00 per hour. They don’t run tabs. It is strictly cash and carry.

These are some of the scams you will run into with the gals. If anyone has others please feel free to post them. I will post a little about agency scams in the future. Remember the rule. Never send money to a gal you have not met. That rule is not bullet proof protection but it will go a long way to steering you away from scams.


Title: Re: AM I BEING SCAMMED!
Post by: BillyB on August 13, 2006, 09:10:56 PM
Some scammers never ask for money. They just mention the many problems they go through in life and men come a running with a fistful of dollars to save the damsel in distress. A few years ago, Putin had arrested a scammer who ripped off men for 1.5 million dollars within a few years! This is big business and a full time job with many scammers. Don't underestimate the fact sending few dollars won't hurt if she turns out to be a scammer.

Scammers who contact you first can be very clever. They would send men an e-mail address to write to instead of through the dating site. If a man decides to test the love of his woman by creating another e-mail account and writing under a different name, the scammer would reply that she has a boyfriend giving the man false comfort knowing the woman is exclusive to her. Not true. As a rule, the scammer will not write a man who written her first.

Scammers like to contact men through Western dating sites such as Yahoo and Match.com. Why? Because these men never had any intention of meeting RW and have no intention of flying to the FSU. These men would also be more naive to the fact that RW could not obtain a tourist visa easily and are likely to fund a woman's travel to their country instead of flying to the woman's country. Of course it's not that easy to have a RW land on your doorsteps and live happily ever after. It's Okay to dream as long as you wake up to reality.

Once you find a woman you're interested in through letters, get on the phone often with her. An insincere woman or scammer can't maintain a high level of excitement and enthusiasm for you very long if she was never interested in you to begin with. I have read many stories where a man would visit a woman but couldn't hold a conversation with her because of incompatibilities or she never showed up. Men who have experiences like that have one thing in common. They never made a phone call.

If you ever visit a woman and she takes you shopping for the finest things, walk away and don't look back. Leave your emotions home and be prepared to do just that if you have a pro-dater. I have read many guys feel like a sucker after being lead into a store only for the woman to sweet talk him into something worth hundreds of dollars.


Title: Re: AM I BEING SCAMMED!
Post by: Turboguy on August 13, 2006, 10:21:01 PM
Some good points there Billy. The part about some scammers not asking for money reminds me of the first EC social I went to. The gal I met that I thought was going to be "the one" told me on our last of two days together that "She would never ask a man for money but if he did not offer it she would think he was not interested" Funny how a few weeks later she was asking me for $ 200 a month for English lessons. Then when we planned a trip to Egypt she said the only way they would let her leave the country was if I sent her the cash for the tickets and she bought them there. For someone who would never ask a guy for money she seemed to have it down pretty good.


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