Military scams using last name "Ramos"

I was recentley contacted by Staff Sergeant James Ramos who told me he was stationed in Bagdad. He got my info on Datehookup, where I went and read his. This is key, On his profile he wrote he was 44 but when we chatted he said he was 41. On his profile he said he was native american, but i noticed his english was choppy so I asked him where he was from and he said Romania. He then told me he was born and raised in Miami. O.k next conversation he asked me how work was darling, I'm unemployed and had told him previousley. He seemed distracted like he was talking to someone else. Next conversation came the you are beautiful and sweet and my soul mate. we are talking 3 very brief conversations. again he asked about work and again I replied unemployed. within seconds the screen went blank. he had signed off. I googled him and found you and his info, I then IM d him and told him what I found ....havent heard from him since. Pay attention to those little itty bitty flags, and do your homework. Chances are if somthing doesnt feel quite right its not.

Welcome Lynx,

I'm glad you were able to detect this scammer relatively quickly. However, we do ask that you not alert scammers to what they do wrong, or direct them to their postings here or on any other scam site. When you do that, you actually improve their odds of successfully scamming the next victim--they will correct their mistakes so they are less obvious, and if they change their name and/or email because they know they are listed, the new name won't be listed, and the next victim will not find their new identity in a search.

This same guy has also tried to get me. Hasn't asked for money yet, but I'm sure it would have come soon if I hadn't found this site. The exact previously posted picture was used on mate1.com. He says his name is Aaron Ramos. That he is 40, divorced, with 2 children (Jasmine, 14, and Jason, 10, who live with their grandmother while he is on "deployment"), originally from Texas, but lives in Bridgeport, CT. He seemed to want to move to my city within hours of meeting me, and wanting to marry me and be a dad to my son. Who wants to marry someone they met an hour ago?! He says he is a Packers fan, but will give them up for me. I've never met a real guy who is willing to give up his football team at the drop of a hat, for a girl. Having dated other Army guys (this one says he is a Sgt in the Army), I've seen a few things in conversations that didn't seem true. Like he wanted me to email [email protected] in order to set up a phone conversation. I know that there are phones avail on bases for the actual military personnel to call home, and there is no need to email a 3rd party. He gave me an address for him in Afghanistan, as well as a unit name. I looked up the unit, and they are not based where he stated they were. Also, the address he gave seemed odd since it didn't contain and APO, and all the family members and my previous fiance had APO in their address when they were deployed. Also, the IP address on his email did not register as it should have if he were really deployed. I will post the pics he sent to me on here, as well as the email in the hopes others dont get duped by him as well.

Aaron Ramos
[email protected]

Sgt Aaron Ramos
The 3rd Battalion
7th Field Artillery
3rd Brigade Comat Team
Khost City, Afghaistan

I was not able to get the images posted. Need help with posting them!!!!

There is no need for a civil person to ask for live of soldier. There is no need for civil person to pay for such a requests.There is no such a thing like prepaid telephone service for soldiers in Afganistan. Scamers are very inentive.

Hi i have just been reading about James thompson ramos and can now tell you he has changed his name to WILLIAM WELLS. He started telling me how much he loved me within a couple of days as soon as i said this is a bit soon he got abit angry saying if you belived in me you would feel the same. Alarm bells started to ring but i held back then about 2 weeks later he wanted money for his phone so he could ring me. I sent him a 10 pound top up i did this on purpose to see if he would ring well some1 did and he sounded very American was it him i dont no. Then about 2 days later cause he heard my voice he wanted out of the army. He said i could buy him out he would pay me back as soon as he came 2 me i was to tell a diplomat that i was his wife. I never got 2 ask how much i was so mad i blocked him

Everybody. This guy has a new name now....Captain Louis Morris Ramos, who claims his uncle in madrid is sick and that his daughter is sick with kidney failure...he's also posing as a priest asking for money.
He has targeted a family member of mine and thanks to this site we've identified that he is a fake.
We haven't contacted him that we've found out or sent him angry emails. We've just pretended that everything is as is. So hopefully we can report him to the authorities and they can identify who this person really is and put them in jail. Thanks to the lovely Pauline and Robert who helped me out with this - i don't know if you guys can see this...but i really appreciate all the help and links you gave me to help me out.
To help those - i found out some really useful information. For those who want to report such things go to the IC3 website: internet crime complaint center and email the United States Secret Service, and also contact the CID - US army criminal investigation command. The CID is an independent criminal investigation organization that tackles these serious crimes.

I have been talking online to a Staff Sgt Ramos and very recently too. I have received the same photos as on here though not all of them...the most recent one is have is him in his bunk with a calendar on the wall with Oct 2010 on it. He told me he was 46 and divorced with a daughter here in the UK. I tracked his emails and they come from Nigeria, the UK, the US and today Libya! He said he knows that his photos have been used by scammers and claims to be the 'real' Mr Ramos but he is still in Afghanistan on extended deployment and that his mails cant be traced to where he is cos of the security involved within their operations out there although he did tell me where he is based and they use different IPs to send mails. Im wondering if this is true and that the army use different IP addresses so they cant be traced to where they are deployed whenever they send a private email? He said the Talibans can know things about them and he also claimed his .mil email had been tapped into and couldnt use it so is using hotmail.co.uk instead which he had registered while in the US. I checked this out too and his email is registered in the US along with his daughters email too. He said he had wanted to tell me about his job and what he does but couldnt cos of the high security going on out there and wished he had earlier as it has caused issues between us now over all these scams going on. I dont know what to believe anymore. He is due to come back to the UK to live permanently (he claims he was born here but left for the US when he was 14) after retiring from the army when he is back from Afghanistan and is asking me to hold on and to believe him until he is back and can prove who he is in person. Now here is the usual bit....he asked me to request a leave pass for him as some were being given the opportunity to apply for leave seeing as their original 3 month deployment had to be extended by a further 6 months and with a special reason to have some leave granted. He gave me a generals email address which i traced to the US and they sent me a form...no money was mentioned until they said i had to pay for his costs as his beneficiary after i mailed the form back. They asked for 850GBP and i was to send it via western union to a woman in scotland acting as their agent. I mailed the office and told them about the scams and they apparently interrogated him about it asking him to verify who i was to him. He mailed me asking me what had i done and was to be interrogated. I have not paid this as alarm bells started ringing especially that these scams have been highlighted a lot recently here in the UK on the news channels. His english is really good and uses a lot of american words too and we have been chatting on MSN for nearly 2 months. He keeps telling me to trust him as it will be all over once he is home and can prove who he is finally and tell me everything about his job and why he couldnt tell me it all. I just dont know anymore..i need answers

I hate to say it, but this fuc*er took $300 from my relative and is a manipulating bumhole.
This person prayed on my relative's weakness "lonliness and trust". I beg of you to totally cut this person off and change emails and phone numbers (if you've given him any details). Someone who claims to "love" or "care" for you straight away and then starts asking money is something to watch out for. Please do not hesitate to reply to me here. There are way better people out there, even on the internet.

Removed email address, addresses posted here will be picked up by spammers and scammers - Dotti

As leelominai has said,

There is NO doubt that this is a scam. If his .mil account were compromised, the US Army would be investigating, and they would have set him up with a new account if necessary.

The IP story is also a pack of lies. If the army needs to hide soldiers' locations, they will use their own proxies.
I'm not sure what you mean by "his hotmail address was registered in the US". He was never in the US. He is an African, and the Nigeria IP you got is his true location. The others are most likely free proxies. Since you started questioning IP's, he just started using random proxies to support his "constantly changing for security" story.

And, the most important part.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DOES SOMEONE FROM OUTSIDE THE US ARMY REQUEST LEAVE FOR A SOLDIER!!
The instant a "soldier" asks you to request leave for him, it is 100% proof he is a scammer.


As for the (fake) General's IP address tracing to the US--just google "free proxy" to see how easy that is to do,

At this point in time, you need to drop this scammer. Do not respond to him, do not listen to any more of his lies. Just walk away.

Thank you for your response....i have checked his hotmail address using an email checker and it was registered in the US. He uses MSN to talk to me. He admitted he used to use Yahoo in the states and when he relocated back to the UK he thought hotmail would be better. He did not ask me for money at all and still hasnt...it was the 'general's office that said i had to pay as its a new protocol and if he said if he knew money was involved he would have never asked me to request it as he's never done a leave request like this before where he is already deployed and said he is prepared to stay out there another six months if it means me not being hurt. He also does not talk to me like a scammer would either as ive researched all the said conversations on these forums about him and they arent like these at all. Im sure if this 'Mr Ramos' has been scamming people left right and centre wouldnt he have been caught by now as ive seen that he has been doing this since 2009 on here...i feel so sorry for the poor bloke if his pics are still being used and the one im talking to isnt the real him....im biding my time dont worry about that!

As Dotti in her reply already said, this is 100% a scam! The fake general is also played by this scammer. After you questioned his IP address, he started using proxy's, and gave you false reasons why his IP's show up in different countries. Now that you are questioning him, he tries every trick in the book to gain your trust again. He's working on your feelings to reel you back in again. Don't let him do that. Just stop all contact with this scammer. He stopped asking for money now, but once he thinks he has reeled you back in again, the money requests will come.
You are not in contact with a soldier, but with an African scammer! Stop all contact with him!

Truth of the matter is - the authorities find it hard to catch these crims. He's over in Nigeria - a country that is so dangerous and corrupt in itself.....im sorry to say....i know i've never been there, but so many scams come out of that place. With my case with my relative, we went to every authority we could...even our local police. The only concern they have is the fact they're impersonating someone else...stealing their identity...it's been a month now since i've registered our case with the CID (who's in affiliation with the FBI) and numerous other places, but i haven't got a reply. Your best defence is to totally cut him off and pray to god that future people who get in contact with this bloke find us here on scam warners so they don't get caught in this nasty scam.

Please understand, we know that it is difficult to accept.

You are dealing with an African scammer, not an American soldier. There is absolutely no doubt about that. No explanation he gives you, no matter how reasonable it sounds, will change that fact. I could go through his emails to you, and I can probably point out dozens of ways his English shows he is African, and how his "story" matches hundreds of other scammers' stories. But he has already proven it beyond a doubt.

It is not just about the money. Ignoring the money thing (there are no fees to be paid for leave--either the soldier has earned it, in which case it is free, or he can't get it.) The simple fact is, there is no policy that even allows people from outside the military to apply for leave for soldiers, let alone requires it. Every real American soldier knows how to apply for leave--those things are part of basic training. A real soldier can't "accidentally" send you through a fake leave process. As far as not asking for money, David has already explained that he has asked you for money, because he or an accomplice who would share the money is the fake "General." The only reason he is backing off on the money request now is because he knows you are suspicious. He knows that you are unlikely to pay money now, so he will back off for a while, be even more romantic, and once he thinks you are fully believing in him again, he will come up with another emergency that requires your money.

As far as signing up for yahoo and hotmail in the US goes, just because he claimed to be in the US when he signed up doesn't mean he was actually there. In fact, you can be sure he wasn't there. Location is extremely easy to fake. If I wanted to pretend I was in Germany, for example, it would take me less than a minute to find a proxy that would make me look like I am really there. I could use the proxy to go to hotmail and sign up, and it would look like I am in Germany. I wouldn't have to leave my chair. (I am in the US, and have never been to Germany.)

The longer you stay in contact with him, the more you will be hurt by his lies, and the time you have wasted on a relationship that is not real.

Here's a link to another thread in this forum. A friend of mine was scammed out of $1500 Australian by someone using the same photos.

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