Too good to be true?

Hi everyone

I have started messaging an American guy who says he is in Afganistan with the US Air Force. He seems nice and genuine, he has told me about his family back in North Carolina and about when he is next on leave, he says he has no money worries and a nice house and a Wife, he is happily married and has never asked me to be more than friends. I asked him if I could post him a Christmas card, he said he would love me to but he cannot receive mail for security reasons other than from the US. I am not sure if this is a lie or not?. Also I did some research into his e-mail address which is active but I read on the internet that if he was serving in the US Air Force that his email would not be a yahoo or gmail address .. has anyone got any thoughts as to if he sounds genuine?. Thanks for any advice or help.

[AlanJones]

The line about the post sounds made up to me, but one of our American members might have a better idea.

All servicemen will have a .mil email address, so there really is no need for them to be emailing you from a free email address. You mention gmail and yahoo - has he emailed you from a yahoo address? If so then you should be able to use the headers to see where he is actually writing from.

One thing that is strange though is the wife - most military scammers go for romance, so admitting to having a wife back home rather limits him on that front.

Hi

He is e-mailing me from a gmail account. He said he would rather e-mail me than chat online on the site we met on. I looked at his profile on the site we chat on and he has about 6 other friends he talks to and has told me about the conversations they have. I find it hard to believe that he is not allowed mail from outside the US. His writing, spelling, grammar are all fine. He does not use much American spelling in his words as he is from England originally and his English is fine. Thank you for your help and advice, it is much appreciated.

I would watch out for any money requests, sometimes scammers will string you along, and get you really believing then hit you with some "emergency" that involves you sending cash.

As soon as you get such an email drop him !

Thanks guys. I really hope he doesn't start asking for money but I have been asked for money before by another guy who claimed he was American but turned out was in Nigeria, so I am wise to the signs of that but I would be really interested to know if what he says about not being able to receive mail from anywhere other than the US, anybody's thoughts on that would be a great help, thank you.

Scammers lie so I doubt there is any truth to not being able to get mail.

Test him, tell him that you have a relative in the states that he/she can post a card for you,

Ask him for his address, I willing to bet that he will come up with some bull as to why that can't happen

Thanks I guess he will have an excuse about his address. I am going to tell him that I know he can receive mail and see what his reaction is, if he responds that is!. One way or another I will get to the bottom of this Thanks for your help and advice!

Could you post his emails? There may be signs of being West African that we can see but you would miss. Also either post here or PM me what he says about North Carolina. I may be able to verify or falsify it with a website check or road trip.

Thanks guys. I haven't received any e-mails from him yet we only exchanged addresses this morning so as soon as I receive one from him I will post to you. Thanks once again.

he said he would love me to but he cannot receive mail for security reasons other than from the US.

This is a LIE in fact any time they come up with excuses as to why they cannot get Mail being security reasons it is always a Scammer behind it he Doesn't have an APO that is why he made up that lie

http://www.anysoldier.com/howtosend.cfm

As you can see very clearly, soldiers CAN receive mail from people outside the US.

He does not use much American spelling in his words as he is from England originally and his English is fine.

This is more than a bit odd as well. The US military, like most military forces, takes the unsurprising position that those serving as soldiers need to be citizens. A UK citizen would not be allowed to serve as an American soldier. "From England" implies he is supposedly British. Using British spellings would mean he grew up there. That sounds an awful lot like a British citizen (not that he is likely to be British in reality--Africans typically learn British English rather than American.)

As VX said, if he has emailed you, please post a message or two here and we can probably better determine whether he is African.

Or post some messages he sent you on the site. They won't have headers, but we can still tell something about where he's from.

Hi Everyone and thank you all for your replies, you have been a great help. Message for VX and Dotti, sure I would willingly e-mail you some of his messages and I can also e-mail you some of his photos, as I said he hasn't contacted me by e-mail yet and I doubt he will if he is a scammer. But I can get them from the site we talk on. If you could let me know what you think that would be great guys thank you!.

Absolutely. If you don't want to post them here, you can forward by pm or just paste into an email.

Thanks Dotti I have just e-mailed you what I can copy and paste.