Another Scam Case

Another case that followed in less than one week after, this time through Meelovia, was that of a so called ‘23 year old’ ‘Miss Jenifer Deng from Sudan living in a refugee camp in Gambia’ who also asked to be my friend after going through my profile. She also requested I send her a mail through her private email address.

So I did, telling her she sounded like a very friendly person and I promised to get across to her frequently

Then a preamble to the scam mail came. She wrote unedited;

Hello dear,

How are you? thank you for your response to the mail I sent you. and I am highly satisfied with it. How are you now? Mine, well i thank God for keeping me till this moment.

My name is Miss Jenifer Seaman Deng, 23 yr old girl from Darfur Region of Sudan and right now i am residing in the refugee camp here in Dakar Senegal as a result of the the killing of my family by the rebels last year, please do not be discourage for hearing this.

My late father Engr.Seaman Deng, was the Chairman, Gruv-Melton Oil and Gas Company a private extracting oil firm in Durfur. The brutal killing of my mother and my father, one kid sister and kid brother took place one early morning by the rebels as a result of the civil war that is going on until now in Sudan. It is only me that is alive now and I managed to make my way to the West African state called Senegal where i am leaving now in a refugee camp here in Oakam North, 12 km away from the capital city of Dakar Senegal.

I would like to know more about you. Your likes and dislikes,your hobbies and what you are doing presently. I will tell you more about myself in my next mail. Attached here are some of my photos for you,though I am not all that photogenic.

Hoping to hear from you soon.

Yours dearly,
Jenifer.

I replied her mail sympathizing with ‘her’ on the death of members of your family. I told her my hobbies and also how I hate liars, mediocres, lazy and dirty people but love intelligent, truthful, hardworking and neat people. To drive home the point, I informed ‘her’ that I am presently a security consultant and a network marketer.

I related to her the story of someone whom I met in Perfspot who claimed to be a widow and presented a story to me on some lost money which she wants me to help get and blah blah blah. Besides, I told ‘her’ that as a security consultant I have done some studies in scams of various kinds so I knew that person was a scammer. All these were to indirectly dissuade ‘her’ should ‘she’ also be thinking of trying to perform such fraudulent acts.

It seemed she was so determined to continue as at last the real mail unveiling her reasons for the friendship came unedited as follows.

Hello my love,

I was very happy when I received your mail. Like I told you in my last mail that I am staying in a refugee camp. This Refugee Camp is headed by a Reverend Father James Omeni whom i used his office computer to send you this email and i only enter his office when he is less busy.

This place is just like one staying in the prison and I hope by Gods grace, with your help i will come out of this place soon. I do not have any relatives; whom i could go to now.The only person That i have here on earth is; Rev father James,who is the Reverend Minister in charge of the church in this camp; owned by United Nations. The pastors e-mail address is (rev_james1958@yahoo.com) This is his telephone No. 00221 767-585-535. You can as well reach me through his telephone number.

As a refugee here I don't have any right or privilege to any thing be it money or whatever because it is against the law of this country. I want to go back to my studies because I only attended my first year before the tragic incident that lead to my being in this situation now took place.

Meanwhile,I have my late father's Certificate of Deposit and death certificate here with me which I will send to you latter,because when he was alive he deposited some amount of money with CHASE FINACIAL BANK in United Kingdom; which he used my name as the next of kin,the amount in question is $6.500.000.00(Six Million, Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars). Though my father owned so many investments outside Africa which I do not know the companies or the bank where he kept his money but thank God that he deposited this money in my name otherwise I would have been left with nothing.
Please I will like you to forward to me those information’s bellow:

1. YOUR REAL NAME:
2. YOUR REAL ADDRESS:
3. YOUR REAL AGE:
4. OCCUPATION:
5. NATIONALITY:
6. TELEPHONE NO.

So I will like you to help me transfer this money to your bank account and from it I can travel to meet you and live there. I kept this secret to people in the camp here, the only person that knows about this money is the Reverend because he is like a father to me.

So in the light of above i will like you to keep it to yourself and don't tell it to anyone for I am afraid of loosing my life and the money if people gets to know about it. Remember I am giving you all these information due to the trust I deposed on you. I like honest, understanding and God fearing people,truthful and a man of vision,and hardworking.

I will give you full details of my late father's Deposit account information and the Bank contact information for you to contact them on my behalf as soon as i receive your response.
Have a nice day and think about me.
Awaiting to hear from you soonest.
Yours lovely
Jenifer.

I followed up thus:

Hi love, I told you I'm a security professional so I'm surprised that you could attempt to play a cheap scam with me. Well sweetie, I love those beautiful photos. Send me more if you still have them as compensation for wasting my time. How I wish I'd meet the real owner of these pix, I would have given anything to have her. Bye love. Ogaga

When I told a friend this story he said it is very common now for some guys to send pictures of very beautiful girls who seek friendship through the net and thereafter launch a scam attack on their victims. I have attached here photos of “Jenifer” sent by the fraudster, and boy isn’t she beautiful! Be warned! Fraudsters are all over the internet. Be careful not to be a prey!

Scam On The Broad Internet Street

The internet can be likened to a very broad street or highway through which millions of people pass daily. That internet and internet-related frauds are commonplace is not in contention but when it gets into the domain of social networks it would be worthwhile drawing attention to practical cases to save very gullible and get-rich-quick social networkers and other internet users from getting the bite. Let me use my personal experience to illustrate what I am trying to get across.

I had barely signed up with Perfspot when one ‘Mrs. Santos Rebecca Seyes’ from ‘Cebu in Philipines’ requested to be my friend. Once I accepted ‘her’ request ‘she’ indicated I should get to ‘her’ through ‘her’ private email address as ‘she’ was impressed with my profile.

I replied ‘her’ mail thanking ‘her’ for your interest in my profile and that I am looking forward to more communication.

Next, she came out with what I consider to be her reason for seeking my friendship as in the mail below. She wrote unedited;

Hello,

Of course I know this message will come to you as a surprise, but I want you to consider yourself lucky and see it as favour from Father Almighty to be the chosen one to manage this project, with no doubt this will be for our mutual benefit as soon as possible. I would like to take this great opportunity to introduce myself properly. I am Ma. Santos Rebecca Reyes from the Philippines, widow of the late former AFP Chief of Staff who died on 29 June 2007, before the present Chief of Staff Gen. Alexander B.Yano of the Philippines.

I inherited a total of $18.4 million U.S. dollars from my late husband, the money was concealed in a metal druk box and was deposited with a security and finance company in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivory, that was because I needed a maximum security/safety of my consignment and no body or government organization can trace the where about of the money until I am ready and prepare to claim it. but the security company does not know the actual content of the box, because it was filled under a secret arrangement of family valuables.

My main purpose of sending you this e-mail is because of the way i found you and perhaps trustworthy to give you this priority of shipping the box of money to any address that you think is very secure and save in your country for onward deposit into your account for the purpose of future investment. Your percentage of which we shall chat on soon. As soon as i hear from you, in my next email i will send you my photo, guide lines and also the Authorization document to contact the company which is the deposit document that was issued from the company on the very day the box was deposited with a secret code for safety. I give thanks immensely for your co-operation as I look forward to hear from you soon.

All the best,
Santos Rebecca.

I sent her the following mail:

Ain't I lucky! Look Ma Santos, in case you don't know, I'm a security officer who's done a lot of studies on scams. The one you are operating is called LOCAL even by scammers. Do you have to join Perfspot for scams? Too bad! Well, try your luck somewhere, you may be lucky with some stupid, greedy guys. Bye love.

The next time I visited Perspot ‘she’ had been bared from the network. One musician in Nigeria sang, “Mugu, (fool) don pay (has paid), shout halleluyah, oo oo oo oo ooh!” Don’t be a “mugu”, be wise.

When You Are Riding In A Taxi

Some Taxi drivers collaborate with dubious police officers to put innocent passengers into trouble. When you take a drop or charter a Taxi cab, do not be carried away with reading a newspaper, novel or magazine or playing with your phone or do something that would take your mind from your environment. Watch out carefully whatever is happening along the way.

That cheerful Taxi driver taking you to your destination may be an accomplice of the criminal police officer or even robbers. The driver may engage you in a discussion from politics to personal issues, taking you through a longer route to extract information about you or what you are carrying or have on you. Once he gets to know you have valuables and cash on you, he could alert the police with a sign at a check-point using various methods including beeping the lights of the car, blaring his horn, greeting the officer humorously, whistling at them to pass a message on your financial position. When the police officer gets the signal he could engage you in unnecessary questioning. This may be followed with a serious search on you and the car for any hidden valuables.

Once you find yourself in this mess, it is advisable to simply comply with the officer’s instructions but looking for opportunity to draw the attention of those who could help you. If you think it is dangerous to do so just play along knowing that your life is worth more than that valuable that they want from you. Note that prevention is better than cure. Do not expose your person or how loaded you are with cash or the valuable you are carrying with you through a conversation with the driver in a bid to show-off.