Someone help me

I met a guy online about 4 months ago. He found me on facebook. He says his name is Steve Millner and he is from Norwich, Norfolk England. He says he is a self-employed architectural project manager. He told me his birthdate, his age, and even names of his friends. After 2 months of lengthy emails back and forth, he asked me to deposit a check for him in a local bank. Of course I did, didn't know it was a "fake" check, and was arrested on charges of forgery of a financial instution. I had to hire an attorney, and am currently waiting to find out the ultimate results of this legal situation.

My friend, "Steve" has offered to pay for my attorney, but was conveniently called to Russia to bid on a mega site contract in Moscow. That was about 2 months ago. He claims he cannot use a credit card in Russia and must purchase everything on a cash-only basis. This makes no sense to me. He has given me access to both of his email accounts and I have read some of his emails between him and his friends. These "friends" pretty much talk to him about subjects of which I am familiar, i.e. things he has already talked to me about.

He originally did ask me to send him money to help him leave Russia, but I told him I did not have any, he has not asked me for anything else. I have asked him repeatedly when he is coming to the US to take care of my business and he says "don't worry about it. I'm working on it and it will be very soon." Apparently, his "friends" have sent him money to cover his expenses in Russia. How much sense does that make?

Of course he claims he is in love with me, wants to be with me, and I am the first woman he has ever been serious about. He has told me many, many stories about his college days, his friends, and various other topics of conversations. His email address is as follows: [email protected]
Attached is a copy of one of his email headers:hey sweety
From:
Architect Megasite <[email protected]>
View Contact
To:

12 Files View Slideshow Download All
after building.jpg (13KB); backyard.jpg (62KB); front view.jpg (56KB); hmmn yummy.jpg (12KB); hmn future.jpg (16KB); main stting rm.jpg (16KB); my bedroom.jpg (16KB); rm 2 suite.jpg (11KB); rm 3 kiddo.jpg (13KB); rm 4 kiddo.jpg (13KB); sittiing rm kids.jpg (13KB); work space.jpg (11K

These were pictures of rooms of a house, supposedly his house.
I also have a couple of phone numbers that he has given me... and have them listed in my contacts folder. However, when he calls me, he shows up as "blocked" or "unknown." I think that's weird, too.

Some of the profile stuff you guys have given information about fits him, some doesn't. My husband and I are separated, and he thinks this guy is fake all the way. Oh, yeah, he is on facebook also...the picture he sent me there is one of the same ones that he sent me. He looks the same in all of his photos and they are not professionally taken. So....I am just needing to hear from some others out there who have dealt with scammers all of the time. I think to myself "what could he possibly want from me?" I know better than to send money, gifts, etc. Please advise...

I'm sorry to hear that you have been going through a bad situation.

Let me put it this way. Even without seeing his writing, or email headers, or hearing about the fake check, alarm bells would seriously be going off here. There's not enough info for me to see what doesn't fit the profile of a scammer--virtually everything I see here and on his facebook profile says "scammer". Add the fake check, and those alarm bells turn into sirens. This is a scammer, no doubt about it.

-architectural profession - falls in top 3 list of male character professions - especially interesting because on facebook he lists his degree as Meng (master of engineering, which is NOT the same as a degree in architecture, which would be M.arch). Of course engineering is number one on the list of scammer claimed professions. Right here we have a huge problem.
-email address--free email address containing the name of his claimed profession--again very common scammer tactic of scammers using email address to reinforce claims.
-subject of email includes "sweety:" - typical use of terms of endearment
-the pics need to be posted but from the titles, it is obvious he is claiming to be a single dad--again typical scammer here
-facebook page with only one friend-typical of a fake profile set up for the purpose of scamming a single victim
-claims to be from UK but conveniently out of the country - typical scammer
-needs money to get out of country - typical scammer reason
-employer on facebook page: chevron, again, top of the list of scammer employer claims
-note the favorite quote on his FB page is wrong and he obviously failed to see it, suggesting that English is not his first language.
-Claiming he is going to pay for your attorney is typical of a scammer also--scammers frequently claim they are going to repay victims or help them out financially-but they have absolutely no intention of doing so. If the victim receives a penny from the scammer, it will be coming from some illegal arrangement that will put the victim at even greater risk (i.e., the scammer will pay the victim using fake checks or stolen credit card info, or will use the victim to receive money stolen from other victims).

As far as some the other things go--giving a birthdate, etc. is pretty standard--these details are planned before starting a scam. Telling stories of his childhood and friends is not something we always see, but it is not unusual either. Some scammers are more organized and patient-these scammers will often limit themselves to one or two victims per identity, and they will map out that identity, complete with scripted stories about their life or past, to maximize believability. Giving you access to his 2 email addresses is very common too--it does not mean that he isn't scamming others--it simply means that he isn't doing so under those boxes. He may be scamming victims using half a dozen or more names/emails.

As to why he continues, it is because he still thinks he has a chance of getting money out of you in the future.

It would help other victims if you could post his phone numbers; some of his emails, especially early ones (he may use the same scripts under other names); and extended headers from one or more of his emails (in order to tell you how to get extended headers, we will have to know how you check your email--e.g. yahoo web interface, gmail, outlook, etc.). To post photos, you can follow the instructions in my signature link.

Welcome to ScamWarners alralj.

What did "Steve Milner" want you to do with the money you got from the check he had you deposit in the bank? My guess is he wanted you to wire transfer most of the money to him via Western Union and keep some of the money for yourself for the trouble.

Scammers are criminals who present them self as a believable character. The develop elaborate story lines and have friends that are often them self. I don't understand why he would give you the password to his email account. What was he trying to prove to you. Did he also want you to share your password with him?

You know he is a scammer. Scammers want to have you send money to them for as long as you will fall for their story line. Your best thing to do is to stop ALL communication with him. He will not help you out of your situation. He cares only about how much money he can get from you.

Don't tell him you are on to him. Don't give him any explanations, just drop all communication. You have enough difficulties with the charges against you from him pulling you into his scam and trap.

I don't know if you can use any emails you might have where he instructed you to cash the check for him. It probably will do nothing to catch him, but it might help your case.

I see that Dotti was giving you some of the same information I was writing. I hope you will heed our warning and stop dealing with this scammer. It sounds like your life in plenty complicated at the moment.

Welcome again. If you have other questions, feel free to post them here or PM one of the Moderators.

Welcome here alralj.

The reason for giving you acces to some of his e mail accounts, is to 'proof' he is genuine. All the correspondence you see in there are written by the scammer himself. Some scammers use that tactic.

Hi alralj,
I suppose sooner or later you will accept the cruel fact that you have been scammed - I am so sorry this happened to you.

When you realise the situation you are in: Please do not delete the emails you received from the scammer, and if you have recorded chats, save them!

You will eventually need this documentation for your lawyer to support your claim that you are not a fraudster but the victim of a cheque scam.
Best wishes
Katharina

Thanks so much for all of the information. This has all been so confusing but the radars are definitely up. You know, I have saved most of his emails because my attorney asked me to and I was reading them. Also, in our IM archives...the conversations are interesting...so detailed and unrelated to money or gifts or any materialism. I remember even telling him once that I did not have money and he still hasn't given up. I'm still not understanding why he would go through such detailed script/storyline and dish it to me over this long without anything from me...and that's the deal...there is nothing from me, nor will there ever be anything from me.

His phone calls are continuous...they always say "blocked" or "unknown." However, weird thing, he gave me 2 phone numbers that will ring him when I call...sighs....well, I guess the only thing I have now is my anger and frustration at having to shell out thousands of dollars to keep myself from going to jail over something that I'm innocent. I suppose I must say that, if he truly is a scammer, which I am believing, he is really good at his job.

Hello again alralj, thank you for posting again. I got your scammer to email me back. I don't know where he is telling you he is at this moment, but his email to me came from Nigeria.

Delivered-To: [email protected]
Received: by 10.229.31.204 with SMTP id z12cs352910qcc;
Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:19:59 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.229.81.138 with SMTP id x10mr4170418qck.20.1293571199166;
Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:19:59 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from web65805.mail.ac4.yahoo.com (web65805.mail.ac4.yahoo.com [76.13.11.62])
by mx.google.com with SMTP id c21si10394361vbv.91.2010.12.28.13.19.57;
Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:19:58 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of [email protected] designates 76.13.11.62 as permitted sender) client-ip=76.13.11.62;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of [email protected] designates 76.13.11.62 as permitted sender) [email protected]; dkim=pass (test mode) [email protected]
Received: (qmail 86146 invoked by uid 60001); 28 Dec 2010 21:19:57 -0000
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1293571197; bh=Fzog1YR+enUXtrlmIrU7VG1S7psiqqsX0+BTsI3daCs=; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=5ndM3asa06C6mEc5I1fwqzhMG4pzgmLueljtuvanYCYRxxzUQRuGuG+vPHv/uHrpCRiQyS2xsXfL1XoDBTvv2q+llb7PQL2A52KugWzrIUgGrYyX+Soj6rn3sGXL6P8wXrINSz22phGp4GXQpIm9aAMMJ97hn0vR0OSJQXR6AEc=
DomainKey-Signature:a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws;
s=s1024; d=yahoo.com;
h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type;
b=mGCJ7QDHy4fZ7CJRN6mUmYX8T1FSfw1UBYXc/KxKCGA29tfQk4m7CBbbQXmCU/FwERQxOPqW7Wxj/sGA/W+ScIsTFfC9JEVlF0zzIRPrUlVt+wZeQflQHje/N3g0igiY+wAUu2P+vbFa8TMsmVSTI9blayjfHL2JTahWfvrZtsE=;
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
X-YMail-OSG: crm55zkVM1kk8Xwe1E0oqE1jInIm7BGoTLRONA3zaBvCI1q
7wI.MpM4yXLPXGGeq2Y5EZVmfySUYNo43OaoFkND6W0fNHMvbEiFlIOFNZJk
HmtoOCnYjfZnyHhskVDlEifN4DlBUsiy0ga3EYd9lkxAgCz_R5XvztwJzBX4
c1PjnAVrylqmq_QftBRdx7lEsJ7smQSnIWpiK_7k4wVf0LjMrna1JfPHTRAz
lELaYsx_m6NArqgPNJyoe3eosHZQVXHVvO8AqONeAoqC5jslBXW3tTIJ_OKk
iuEpBA9i59vHYPSSEz0KFg1AvQKOBkP4EXdEwg09b2x5CC6FRGCaaP2JNk.h
WKb6PPw5oXrBJ
Received: from [41.206.12.9] by web65805.mail.ac4.yahoo.com via HTTP; Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:19:57 PST
X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/553 YahooMailWebService/0.8.107.285259
References: <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:19:57 -0800 (PST)
From: Architect Megasite <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: money troubles continue
To: [email protected]>
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-1965365807-1293571197=:73589"

--0-1965365807-1293571197=:73589
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Dear sir/madam.
I am sorry i do not know you and i would be grateful if you dont send me
messages hence forth..thank you and God bless
________________________________
From: [email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tue, December 28, 2010 4:37:39 AM
Subject: Re: money troubles continue

I am sorry to hear about this. I am trying to get some money saved up. I hope
that helps.

Love always,

[Querying whois.afrinic.net]
[whois.afrinic.net]
% This is the AfriNIC Whois server.

% Note: this output has been filtered.

% Information related to '41.206.0.0 - 41.206.31.255'

inetnum: 41.206.0.0 - 41.206.31.255
netname: MTN-Nigeria
descr: MTN Nigeria
country: NG
admin-c: BO5-AFRINIC
tech-c: BO5-AFRINIC
org: ORG-MN1-AFRINIC
status: ALLOCATED PA
mnt-by: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
mnt-lower: MTNNIGERA1-MNT
source: AFRINIC # Filtered
parent: 41.0.0.0 - 41.255.255.255

organisation: ORG-MN1-AFRINIC
org-name: MTN Nigeria
org-type: LIR
country: NG
address: Golden Plaza,
address: Falomo Roundabout,
address: Ikoyi
address: Lagos
e-mail: [email protected]
e-mail: [email protected]
phone: +234 803 200 5038
admin-c: CN6-AFRINIC
tech-c: BO5-AFRINIC
mnt-ref: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
mnt-ref: MTNNIGERA1-MNT
mnt-by: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
source: AFRINIC # Filtered

person: Babatunde Omogbai
nic-hdl: BO5-AFRINIC
address: MTN Nigeria Communications Limited
address: Plot 1612 Adeola Hopewell Street
address: Victoria Island
address: Lagos State
address: Nigeria
address: lagos
address: Nigeria
e-mail: [email protected]
e-mail: [email protected]
phone: +2348032009018
mnt-by: MTNNIGERA1-MNT
source: AFRINIC # Filtered

omg...all I can say is "wow." Thank you so much for showing me that information. He has been telling me that he is in Russia...for 2 months. I couldn't believe it. I asked him how he could just stay somewhere without having any money and he said "well, when you stay at a 5-star hotel you can have an accumulation to pay, like a tab." I was just staring at my computer thinking, yeah, right, whatever...there is no tab that will go 2 months! Well, I am so afraid now...I sent him pictures of me....I will try to post his photos on your link so that others might be warned. Thank you.

Also, in our IM archives...the conversations are interesting...so detailed and unrelated to money or gifts or any materialism. I remember even telling him once that I did not have money and he still hasn't given up. I'm still not understanding why he would go through such detailed script/storyline and dish it to me over this long without anything from me

He is obviously clever enough to bide his time and build up confidence before asking for money. Even if you told him that you can't give him any money, he was hoping to convince you to get a loan, as he would "pay you back as soon as he met you". And if that didn't work he could still use you to cash fake cheques.
I hope you have relatives or friends who can support you.
Best wishes
Katharina

OMG, this person has also been in contact with me and I have a lot of information about him (them) for you! I think he could have seen this page because he's just changed his e-mail address within the last few day's!! I really need to speak to you?

Welcome bebo12345. I'm glad you found us. Yes, it's possible that the scammer has seen this information from searching but he was likely using several names and email accounts already.
Please stop all contact with him immediately. Do post any information you have on him and let us know if you have any questions.

I was sent the following message into my inbox on facebook about one month ago from a guy named Peter Wilshere.

i am so sorry for the blank message,my name is peter. I am very delighted to meet you here. I saw your profile in the search result i got when i was looking for my old school mates , i just could not resist but to take a glance at u. I guess you must hear this everyday.
I am an architectural designer and geophysicist for major corporate bodies across were ever (laughs..). I know this is not a dating site but i really will love to explore this possibility of getting to know you quite well. So do tell me a thing or two about you ok?
Regards peter

I did some checks on Peter Wilshere who told me that he lived in Norwich in Norfolk and was 36 years old and would be 37 on the 27th Dec 10.
I checked the uk electrial roles, the census and my friend checked tracesmart, no such person exisisted in Norwich, Norforlk with these details.

His English was also not very good and considering he had been to Oxford University! and worked for Shell Oil, and his profession was an architect, and his spelling was not that good,alarm bells were ringing now!!

He proceeded to bombard me with facebook mails into my inbox telling me tales of wisdom!! lots of philosopy about his emotions and telling me he had grown up without a Mother and his Father had died 5 years ago and his heart was just breaking in two!

I told him I had checked his details and found out that he didn't exist! He told me he would prove that he did and sent me 6 pictures of himself via e-mail. The pictures were just snapshots of a guy in the snow and snapshots of what looked like him on holiday. His profile information on Facebook was also incorrect and it didn't mention that he lived in Norwich, He begged me to send him photos of myself and I sent him one back (not sure why I did this because the alarm bells were really ringing now).

He now had my e-mail address and told me he would prefer to speak to me via this method, he gave me a telephone number 44704-576-8612 , I checked this number on google and it was a premium rate number which charges you everytime you call it and everytime he calls you on it he makes money. I sent him a note telling him this and I asked him if he thought I was stupid!! and there was no way I was phoning this number. He then sent me a labara mobile number 07586026808. I never tried either of these numbers, but he did keep asking me for my mobile number which I never gave him, I kept making excuses about my phone not working.

He then tried to get me to set up a Yahoo ID Messenger account so that we could talk to each other more often, he was now telling me he had matured as a person and wanted to be more than just friends!

The last e-mail I received from him said he was going to Russia to bid on a contract.

I did a search on google with his e-mail address [email protected], this was when I found the message off Alralj, I looked on facebook at Steve Millner and Steve's profile photo on facebook was one of the photos he had sent me!

On the 8th Jan he changed his e-mail address to [email protected].

He used words in his e-mails lik Sweetie, Big Sighs, muahhhh, Babe, My Dear,

There was also lots of copy and pasting done on his e-mails because they all had different font sizes, which indicated the copying, most people don’t change font sizes everytime they send a note.

His messages were sent all through the day and all through the night and i did wonder when he did any work!!

The names Peter Wilshere and Steven Millner are both names of footballers in the UK.

Ive been lucky and he never asked me for anything and other than sending one photo which I regret doing now, no damage has been done. But I know there will be thousands of girls out there getting the same messages from him!!!
I hope this information helps.

Well thanks so much for sending this information. It really hits home, you know? I'm sorry that he has been bothering you. I just wonder how many other people out there he has done this to. Well, take care. I appreciate your information. If anyone else out there has been scammed by "steve" or "peter" or whatever his name is, it would be good to know and we can post his pics so that other people can be warned.

Hey bebo,
I read thru ur info again and just wanted to ask a couple of questions. First, how do u know steve and peter are uuk football players? I googled and searched but could not find any information. Also, his facebook page is the same as its been...it doesnt say anything about oxford...its ontario. Also, shell oil is not mentioned. I am just curious because I have tried to find out as much about him as possible.

Hi Alralj,

I think the two surnames are footballers in the uk.

Peter Wilshere's facebook profile information, say's his employer is Shell Oil and university is Oxford.

Education and work
Employers Shell Oil Company


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

University University of Oxford
Ive just copied and pasted it from his profile, it dosen't mention Ontario??? Strange!!!

Im also confused because you said you had access to his e-mail account, I was sending e-mails to his megasite address how come you never seen them???
The profile photo on Steve's facebook is one of the photo's that Peter e-mailed to me, so it must be the same person, I have about 5 photos of him, but Im not sure how to upload them, have you uploaded yours??

In his last e-mail he told me he had to rush off to Russia to bid on a contract, he told me this because I asked him to meet up with me I live in the UK. This was the type of answer I expected.

On Peter Wilshere's facebook photo picture he is standing outside the Kremlin at Russia, is this the photo you see on his profile??

Hope this information helps