scam????

[START2]

I was just talkin to a friend in Memphis and I believe he's geting scammed. Let me lay his out for you with as much info as I have and would like some feedback. Mind you, I've never dealt with this stuff before but it seems mighty fishy to me. Dave has been writing this gal for some time now. She's from the Moscow region.They have never met. I'll give you her name and maybe someone here knows her.  Lyudmila Romanofa. She writes and says how much she loves him.  Seems that's red flag#1. Says she can can get a visa from an agency. Of course we all know that's bull. At that time I asked him to ask her when she had an interview, what type of visa she got, and what kind of questions the embassy asked her. She never answered those questions. Also for her to scan a copy of her visa if in fact she got one and send it o his e-mail.  Here we are today. It was just as I said when I warned him. Thanks to past info I have read here, I told him to watch and see if at the day or near the day she was to leave and come here, there would be some kind of medical need in the family and all of a sudden she can't come but she needs money so she can come. Sure enough, that need came last night, only it was a friend who has a son that needs a kidney operation. She loaned her friend most of the money she had for buying the airline ticket and needs several hundred from him to make the diference. Here's the kicker, she did send a scanned copy of the visa and it looks legit except for a few things. Let me first ask you guys one thing. I want to compare my wifes to this one. Does the U.S visa from Ukr. look like the ones the women get from the embassy in Russia? What I see is this. The picture of her face looks like it could be taped over someone else's. The face looks to big for for a passport style photo, in that the top of her head is at the very top of the pic and at the very bottom is her chin.   She has a slight smile. There is a control number a the top, but I do not see that red number in the bottom right corner of the visa. It does say, B1/B2 type visa, Issue date is 11/08/05 and expires 05/06/06. The visa itself looks good but it is different than what my wife has as far as I can remember. I'm at work so I'll have to check when I get home. I wish I knew how to transfer the letter and the attachment from my e-mail to here, so you guys could see. So, have any of you ever heard of or had experience with a scam that goes as far as actually sending what appears to be a real visa but might not be? That red number missing at the bottom of the visa seems extremely questionable along with the other things I mentioned.

[acrzybear]

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!! DANGER!!!

Bruno knows alot about Russian passports and computers, and is usually willing to help. I would say this is a definitely a scam.

[Bruno]

[user=297]START2[/user] wrote:

I want to compare my wifes to this one. Does the U.S visa from Ukr. look like the ones the women get from the embassy in Russia? What I see is this. The picture of her face looks like it could be taped over someone else's. The face looks to big for for a passport style photo, in that the top of her head is at the very top of the pic and at the very bottom is her chin.   She has a slight smile. There is a control number a the top, but I do not see that red number in the bottom right corner of the visa. It does say, B1/B2 type visa, Issue date is 11/08/05 and expires 05/06/06. The visa itself looks good but it is different than what my wife has as far as I can remember.

All visa for USA have the same form... but between 2004 and 2005, they have change of model...

Before 2005, a visa look like this ( they are two false visa ) :



New visa ( from 2005 ) are more secured, take a look for a sample at :

http://www.immihelp.com/visas/sample-usa-non-immigrant-visa.html

The red number is a needed number... it is the visa number...

 

[START2]

Thanks Bruno.  

The visa I see is very good but the red number is not there. That was the first thing that caught my attention. Also it is the newer version this person sent.

[Leslie]

Hi Start2,

Tell your friend to look at this web page -

http://moscow.usembassy.gov/consular/wwwhcads.html#q2

This is the official US Embassy website in Moscow

He can e-mail the visa to

fpmm@state.gov

The will tell him whether it is a real visa or not.

It is amazing what can be done with photoshop but ALL the real visas are recorded on the government computer system so it is easy to check for fraud.

This sounds like the usual scam.  Very familiar story.  I would ask your friend to forward the details to the embassy.  This scam is not usually comitted by a woman but by organized criminal gangs.

 

[Jet]

All visa for USA have the same form... but between 2004 and 2005, they have change of model...

Before 2005, a visa look like this ( they are two false visa ) :



New visa ( from 2005 ) are more secured, take a look for a sample at :

http://www.immihelp.com/visas/sample-usa-non-immigrant-visa.html

The red number is a needed number... it is the visa number...

 

 

Actually the older visas look identical to the one shown at www.immihelp that you linked to. I've never seen one similar to the ones you show in your post. If it is in fact a tourist visa the validity dates are highly suspect (should be a 1 yr multi-entry minimum) but if it's a work visa it may very well have only a 6 month.

Almost certainly a scam anyway.

[Bruno]

Actually the older visas look identical to the one shown at http://www.immihelp that you linked to. I've never seen one similar to the ones you show in your post. If it is in fact a tourist visa the validity dates are highly suspect (should be a 1 yr multi-entry minimum) but if it's a work visa it may very well have only a 6 month.

Almost certainly a scam anyway.

The two pics of visa posted are false... around 20 model of these are to possible to find on the internet... all have the same passport number, the same visa number, the same control number... these two model was used by scammer.

Like Leslie wrote, you can always contact the local ambassy... they will help you without problem... and it is very possible that they start some investigation themself.

About visa, if you think that it is changed by photoshop, open it with GIMP and retrieve several information in the JPEG header... all the last operation make on a pics is stored in the header of file... if you find that in these last operation some function like past, merge, blur, ... was used, become very suspicious

Each kind of file have metadata, and you can find on the internet some script for read them fully... by example for Abode file, use the script located at :

Code: [Select]

http://support.adobe.com/devsup/devsup.nsf/docs/52295.htm/$File/SnipReadAnyMetaData.cpp

There is no private life on the internet... and with computer... file are not only support of data, they give a lot of information over yourself.