Family of a victim that cannot stop

Hi all,

I would consider myself a fairly advanced scam detector but other members of my family are more gullible. One in particular cannot stop falling for 419 advance fee frauds. So regardless of an intervention we had many years ago it seems he is at it again and although having become a little bit more inhibited to immediately pay the requested sums he still believes there is money out here. More or less because he is also running out of funds ...

My question would be how to best deal with the situation because my current mood just tells me to sabotage all further communications with the scammers and inform everybody who has been pulled in willingly and knowingly.
Also I am unsure how to best stop the madness once and forever ... it seams simple reason and just talking did not solve the issue the first time around.

My bad alter ego tells me to get involved one more time and to mess everything up

I'm so sorry to hear that this is happening in your family. It can be really, really difficult to convince victims who have been involved in a scam for so long.
Have you tried involving your local law enforcement? Do you think he would benefit from the information on our forum?
Or, One of our warners would be willing to try warning him for you, without mentioning you, of course. If you would like us to try this, please do not post any of his information here, use our private messaging system to be in touch with a member of the support or moderator team.

Currently I am backing up all the evidence and I am also willing to post most of it here as a warning for others.
As for the intervention I think I will do this together with the remaining people that I know might be interested in setting someone's head straight. While going through the mails I also saw that some party was already sending a warning and putting filters in place to get rid of the scammers incoming bull but all that was done was forward these warnings to the scammers ...

The deeper I dig the more I believe local law enforcement was already involved at least once and if I understand the bad English to the scammers correctly it might have been because of money laundering. But if that is still an option I will also consider taking additional actions and also informing the involved banks and as said whoever seems to be involved and does not know about this yet.

I will definitely set the gears in motion today and if you think that will help I am more than willing to also let a third party try and convince this stubborn oaf. But I guess it is best dealt with in the family and because I know English might not be the best way to get to some understanding.

But what I am really surprised and amazed by is your quick response and the affection people are bringing to these forums

Cowpro,

I am glad that you are willing to make the effort to try again to help your relative. Please do feel free to post any of the scammers here--depending on the situation, some of the members here might be able to find more information as well.

Sometimes it is worthwhile to solicit the help of a respected outside party that the victim trusts--for example, if the victim is a church-goer, asking a trusted church representative to help with the intervention may help.

Keep in mind that this is an international forum, and we have support staff from many countries, speaking a variety of languages. If we have a volunteer on the support staff who speaks the appropriate language, we would be happy to ask that person to help if needed.

Good luck, and don't hesitate to ask questions if needed!

The deeper I dig the more I believe local law enforcement was already involved at least once and if I understand the bad English to the scammers correctly it might have been because of money laundering. But if that is still an option I will also consider taking additional actions and also informing the involved banks and as said whoever seems to be involved and does not know about this yet.

Be aware that the scammers may have threatened your family member with law enforcement or charges of money laundering as a means of coercion. Real law enforcement wouldn't have been involved in those circumstances. We have seen this many times.
You might want to contact your local law enforcment and see if an officer can help convince your family member.

I will definitely set the gears in motion today and if you think that will help I am more than willing to also let a third party try and convince this stubborn oaf. But I guess it is best dealt with in the family and because I know English might not be the best way to get to some understanding.

We have warners who speak languages other than English, and may be able to help, depending on the language needed. It does sound like the person would benefit more from an in-person intervention but do let us know if you would like us to attempt a warning for you. Good luck.

But what I am really surprised and amazed by is your quick response and the affection people are bringing to these forums

Thank you so much for your nice feedback!

Welcome to Scamwarners! I saw your post on Eater.

Adding to the comments of the other members and I would also try some kind of professional assistance, if it were me. For example maybe try a local Department of Consumer Protection office. Is there a legal aid office nearby, perhaps they could offer advice and maybe point you in a positive direction? Many of these offices do have a toll free or local phone number and is not expensive to phone them. It sounds as if simply talking to said family member is a waste of time I'm sad to say. What your post describes is a scam and none of it is true. I think your family member may think some of the e-mails are true but they are all scam.

So I just sent the email which was maybe the hardest part to get the stone rolling after finishing the backups.

Since I have never baited any of these scammers myself and just remembered my passive help on Artists against 419 back in the old days I somehow ended up on eaters first. In the end I do want to bring the communication to closure on my own if possible and also help to shutdown these specific scammers' resources (email, hosting) even if it is just to feel something good about all this mess.

So thank you for all the great support and I will post some updates when I have them!

Now I need to try and get a little bit of sleep before office hours will further ruin this awesome natal day of mine.
And jolly_roger is exactly expressing my feelings but I first want to get some clarifications if an intervention from the law if getting said person more into trouble that he currently is in already.
And believe me if we really have to smack some sense into him this time around - as bad as that sounds - I would not be totally against that.

One other thing Cowpro, is the person concerned will need help and support. When the scammers find a target that sends money, the tricksters will not let go easily. Sad to say the victim is told all soughts of lies etcetera by the tricksters which pulls them away from the very people trying to help.
It becomes a bit of a balancing act in you because being too harsh on said person will alienate them and pull them away from you. Try to avoid that from happening. It sounds like your friend does indeed need all the help possible but you also need to show flexibility. As hard as it seems, you will need to be there for the person when they finally realise. When the realisation does set in and person does finally recognize the scam, they are going to hit the wall with a big thud. By being too harsh, you don't want to push them away altogether because that will make the scammers grip even stronger, so to speak.

Thanks jolly_roger for the feedback which is hard to apply in this case. I will try to quickly summarize the events that led up to this point for reference.

Because of bad luck in his investments and financial losses and without a real job he somehow become addicted to getting back big bucks with all kind of internet fraud emails. So for a really trusting and somehow utterly gullible person he posed and still poses the perfect target for all scammers.
While many years ago (and I really cannot remember if it was just 5 or already 10) he was really hooked up to several of these mainly 419 scams and lost lots of his, ours (family) and friends money that he borrowed from. Because of his stubbornness and way to deal with people that want to help him he almost alienated himself at that time. It is this attitude of also listening to big speeches and agreeing to the points and then (secretly) doing the exact opposite when again sitting alone in front of the PC tinkering.
And also during our first hardcore intervention where the whole family gathered and talked some sense into him at that time with lots of Yes and I understand he was not listening at all and started the whole business again just a year ago. And even while the scams were ongoing everybody who was telling him to stop or tried to educate him was just ignored. So in the end I also told him at that time if he ever was going back to even just talking to any of these lads he would be dead to me.

That was also more or less the main topic of the email I sent to him. Also I informed everybody else involved (banks, friends he borrowed money from, neighbors) about the situation and told them to cut him off from any financial support and to educate them about what was really going on. I also talked to his closest circle and they told me the exact same story. He was keeping to himself doing all the communication via email and phone behind closed doors and burnt most of the links he had to close friends and people that still wanted to help out and believed in his "business" ideas. But the closer circle still knew about his dark past and it was constant cause of fierce discussions because he would still not listen to sense or other people telling him to quit this madness. I was even seeing some letters from maybe friendly scammers or maybe even scambaiters that warned him which he just disregarded, forwarded to the real scammers and continued.

Even the scammers which are really angry at the moment and tell him to go to hell and not waste anymore of their time seem to get impatient. Because to them he looks more like a scambaiter at the moment than a victim that might still be worth keeping hooked.

So at the moment I am trying to close down all resources used I saw in the contacts by contacting the freemail abuse teams and yahoo hosting about the scammers.
As for the victim here I am not sure if he could be put under tutelage (not sure if this is the right word) or somehow stopped from all further activities. Basically he is currently really alienated and destroyed at the moment and I at least hope he does not harm himself in the process ... but everybody I had contact with and talked to so far is on the same page with me. We are just not sure what to do exactly because we need something stronger than words.
Because what I am sure about is that talking alone is not going to help in this case. I am more looking for professional help which should be available for all kinds of addictions. It seems like he is really living in his own world and just does not grip the reality anymore.
Sorry for the long text and I hope this does not give the scammers the needed background info in case they are also browsing these forums ... but at this point I am convinced there is no way back anyways.
Let me know if there is any action or anything I should better remove or stop or which might be useless for the case.

I'm sending a PM Cowpro