Nigerian love scam?

I saw online that there are ways to identify if an email is being sent from an email program typically used by scammers for large volume email manipulation. The site suggested going to http://www.db.ripe.net/whois? and entering the IP address from the email header into the search box. I tried that but no result to all the IP addresses in the email header. It also addressed that "X-Mailer:" was an indication that you might be getting scam email. Has the following been used as scam as far as anyone knows -
X-Mailer: YahooMailWebService/0.7.260.1? What about the woman's name Marlon Rawlins or [email protected] as an email address? The situation sounds "scammish" in that she is an independent artist finishing an art exhibit in museum in Nigeria and will be returning to US in a week or so, and can relocate anywhere - provided beautiful photos and claims to be of Finnish decent spending age 10-24 there from when her father died at 10 (car crash in Chicago) until mother died 5 yrs ago from cancer in Helsinki. Any help or input would be most appreciated before I either slam the door on a potentially good opportunity or keep it open for a scam.

I'm sorry that I don't have much time to reply. I need to get a bus in 10 minutes.
This certainly follows the same pattern as many loves scams. The header will only tell you that "she" is in Nigeria (which we already know).

how were you contacted? Through a dating service, or a random email? Could you please ost the full headers (minus your email) and the first few messages you recieved? That would make our job easier and also allow others to find the details through google.

Cheers.

Thanks. Attatched is the communication history frmo the initial message from True.com and the following dialogue where it did go to yahoo email address - I have removed my name and not attached the photos, to protect identity if not a scam:

True.com ID: AsUKnow_10292
Info: 28-year-old in New York, NY
Seeking 30 to 75-year-old men
Email Me!

Reply now and TRUE will disguise your email address to protect your privacy.

How are you doing today and how was your day? i got a message from true that we Match Each Other.. Take a look at who I am and what I seek. If you like me, message me and i'll send some pic's to see my look...I am sorry for not putting my pics on here ,i just dont know how to put it..i will like you to email me at my personal email address cause my session will soon expire on here and i also want to close my profile here...Please email me at marlonbtt a" t" y" a" h" o" o" d" o" t" c" o" m" ...I will be looking forward to read from you there so i can send you my pics and get to know each other better...

P.S Email me at marlonbtt a" t" y" a" h" o" o" d" o" t" c" o" m" so that we can start hearing from each other and then start something good from there.

[email protected]
I will be waiting to read and send you my pics soon..

*************
Info on True.com was limited. I replied there and then the account was closed on True.com and the email was shown unopened. I sent the following email to the personal email address asking if she got my email on True.com, but not providing any personal information.

Hi I am responding to your email from True. You reviewed my profile and indicated you would like me to review your profile and contact you. Unfortunately your profile is inactive, so please send me your pics and some information about yourself.

Here is the response:

Hello XXXXXXXXXX (name changed here),

How are you doing today? It was really nice reading from you here... How was your day?Uhm well as you already know before my name is Marlon, I'm an artist (paintings precisely) 120lbs,5'9" tall, 29yrs, still single and searching for the right man, i have no kids.. I'm quite new to this online dating and i hope i can meet my soul mate on here,I was born in Chicago,IL, but i have been out of the state when i was 10 years old because i lost my dad in an auto crash... After the death of my dad i move to Finland with my Mom because she is a native of Finland... I spend most of my life in Helsinki, Finland... I also lost my Mom to a Cancer illness 5 years ago... I'm presently in West Africa(Nigeria) for an art exhibition and i will be relocating back to the United state as soon as I'm done with the exhibition here... I'm here to showcase my art works for a new museum about being establish in Nigeria and its been fun so far...For fun i like watching movies and listening to music for sport i love tennis, basket balls. I like going to beach, lake, cooking ,swimming, shopping and reading novel...I think this should tell you a bit about myself... Can you tell me more about yourself? Have you ever been married? Do you have kids? what do you do for a living? Do you stay alone?...I felt so bad so i have not been into any relationship for 10 months and i missed the touch of a real man...well hope this tells a bit more about myself huh? i hope to hear from you soon.

Marlon.

PS:I have attach some pictures of mine to this message and make sure you take good care of my pics..send me some pictures of yours too..

**************
I didn't attach her photos here that were sent to me, as I'm not sure if that is what you do or not. Please let me know. I was leery to hear she was in Nigeria, as I had heard of such scams, and her ID on True was for NYC (and even had the right Zip Code 10280). So I sent the following reply:

Hi Marlon, thanks for the reply. You sound like a very interesting woman. What's the museum you are going to showcase your paintings at? One of my former associates is in Nigeria for the next few months helping the government establish a new cellular phone network for the country and I'd like him to go by the museum and take some photos of your work so I can see them. I love that you are creative and accomplished in addition to your natural beauty. Check out my profile on True.com it's got a lot of information about me as I have completed the full profile. I have been married once and have a wonderful daughter. Let me know what you like most about me and we can see if we click...

Her reply:
It's nice to hear back from you, how was your day? I hope you had a wonderful day?I am looking for someone who is very cool,loving and honest, someone who will can last a century together without divorce, thats one thing I hate in my whole life DIVORCE, its not good and also ruin the kids future in a way are you ready to start up a family now? have you had any luck on the dating site?Actually i believe there are Eleven guideline in a good relationship..... Friendship, good sense of humor, listening ear, Caring, Respect, Honesty, Trust, Dedication, Passion, Romantic and reciprocation.I will be flying back to the state by this coming weekend as soon as I'm done here with the art exhibition down here...... I'm very sure of relocating back to the stateside... I can relocate to any city as soon as am back but what matters to me most is to meet a man to have as friend because i will be new to the area...... What kind of relationship are you looking for? Remember you need trust to love, but first you need to love in order to trust.. Waiting to read from you soonest. Have a pleasant day.

Marlon.

My reply tried to get more information out of her that could verify whether a scam or not:

That's great to hear Marlon! Let me know the museum and city of your exhibition and my buddy can stop by before you finish to take some photos of you with your artwork so I can see you in your environment and some of your creations - nothing better to see the glow and allure of one passionate in their work! Because of his unique consulting role, he is in almost every major city there helping them with their infrastructure and can get to you easily. I can't wait to see you with your work. Maybe you both can call me over his line when you meet so I can hear your voice as well and he can send me a video clip of you both from his phone to build some anticipation for your return to the US. That would be awesome. I'm sure you will like him - he's a great friend and he can share some more stories about me.

Her reply didn't answer any of the questions still, and introduced the idea that she has an inheritance, leading me to believe further that this is a scam - the context of the reply also looked like it was based on what the dating sites would create for an "about me" type profile response with additional details added:

How is your day going? Thanks for writing me again, I just wanna write back so you dont feel your message was left unread.... We seem to have alot in common and i'm really looking forward to meet you in person soon... My last relationship ended 10 months ago cos I caught my ex having an affair with my best friend when i was in finland because of that i ended my relationship with him... I don't want see him anymore and it's part of the reason why i want to relocate back to US so i could take care of my personal life, My bussiness and my inheritance and start a new life.. I am looking for someone that is honest not a player,someone that will always want to be with his family, someone that's not that bar type. My friends describe me as an easy going, down to earth person and i don't easily get mad at someone i care for,i am not the bar type so i am not looking for the bar type... For me, My favorite color is Red, Favorite Music, Uhmmm I listen to any music depending on my mood,But in terms of favorite i will rather say Country, Fav Tv progeramme House swap and maybe seinfield then CSI... favorite food, Uhmmm lobster or anything spongy.... Favourite movies, Probably chick flicks, Michial , Pretty Woman, ET, 7 Brides for 7 Brothers. Again, the feel good kind of movie, Christmas movies. Fun ones that is huh...I want a man that I can trust without question and who can trust me the same.We would be like two vases of water poured into one larger more beautiful vase, in which we would be one....Hope to hear from you soon, have a great day ahead of you.

Marlon.

Let me know if you think this fits the scam situation. Especially with the fact that it looks like the yahoo email address is out of Israel as I posted in the other reply. If so, let me know how to report and if you want the photos sent to me as well to post the scam.

Love scams aren't really my forte, but I'll try to do some research. I will start by saying that this is almost certainly a scam. I'm 99% sure, but I'm going to try and find some decent evidence to back it up.

My first worry is that she isn't reading your emails or answering any of your questions. It looks scripted. Another small thing is that Marlon is a guy's name. Also, why would she use a NY zip code if she wasn't in the states or have any real intention of moving to that area? Also, if she moved to Finland aged 10, I would expect her to have a better grasp of the English language. The grammar and syntax are very West African – It could also be Finnish, I don’t mind declaring my ignorance about that.
The inheritance thing could be a secondary scam, it's not unheard of, but it could also be reassurance that you will get the money you "lend" her back.

I'm having trouble finding online copies of this script, so I assume it's new (You posting it here will help any future victims). Having the pictures would really help. Most scammers rip their pics off of amateur modelling sites, so you see the same one's pop up time after time. If you wouldn’t mind watermarking them with some sort of disclaimer, I.E. FAKE? USED BY SCAMMERS etc, it would prevent them being reused by other scammers. Our upload site http://www.scamwarners.com/main/ will do this for you.

As she says that she's going back to the USA in the next few days, you might want to carry on the convo until the inevitable question pops up – Can she borrow some money? There will be a problem with the flight or visa (She shouldn’t need a visa if she’s a US citizen, but it might come up). She might have an accident and need to pay hospital bills. Maybe even have a problem with her paintings. Whatever the problem, she will need money.
Don’t be fooled if she provides flight details. They can be easily found on the net.

If I’m wrong about this, I’ll eat any hat you care to name. This is a scam, please don’t get emotionally involved.

Hi Scamwary,

Has the following been used as scam as far as anyone knows -
X-Mailer: YahooMailWebService/0.7.260.1?

Yes, it is becoming increasingly common to see this in scammer emails. And yes, you are absolutely right in that this is a scam. The script is a very big red flag, but there are actually several other indicators:

1) The age range--30-75? For someone who wants to start a family? The unusually wide age range is typical scammer, not typical of someone who wants to have kids.
2) The grammar. I won't point them out here for fear of educating any scammers, but a few of the mistakes are very typical of lads.
3)The age changed from 28 to 29--now this could be authentic, but lads have a tendency to forget how old they are supposed to be, and combined with the other information, this is probably another lad mistake.
4)"My last relationship ended 10 months ago cos I caught my ex having an affair with my best friend when i was in finland because of that i ended my relationship with him." This is so typical scammer--It seems like almost always the love of their life died in some horrible accident or had an affair with their best friend.
5) Google the water pitcher quote and you will see a nice list of scammers come up. Here's one: http://catherinette.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/pour-your-water-vase-into-mine/
6) As Newdonym pointed out, she claims she hasn't come back to the US yet, how could she have a NY zip code if she hasn't been here in 19 years?

You can also go to romancescam.com and see if you can find your scammer's pictures--they have a nifty new search tool (actually it is on http://www.scamdigger.com/ )that allows you to search a very large database of photos used by scammers. Again, the photo is probably stolen.

The grammar and syntax are very West African – It could also be Finnish, I don’t mind declaring my ignorance about that.

Trust me, if she was born in the US like she says she was.. and then moved to Finland at 10 and then moved away again, then she would have no issues with her english or grammar. Knowing this because I moved to Sweden at as a pre-teen and have no issues whatsoever with my english (is born in the UK).

No doubt she is very much african.

If you know any finnish at all.. or rather just go to a finnish website, do some copy & pasting and then push her with some finnish.. see if she responds to it or rather trips on it.. if she ignores it.. then you'd know she's a fake all the way through.

Thanks for your update. And I just got another email and coincidently it had exact same language in a section that was posted as a Nigerian male scammer in a letter to a woman (creepy). You were spot on. Please let everyone know that [email protected] is definately a Nigerian scammer, whether communicating with male or female. And thanks for your help and detailed information.

Discovered a complaint regarding above scammer.

Exactly the same story happened to me, fortunately for me I m not so naive
It won t be so easy for Miss or Mister Marlon Rawlins from Nigeria !
Only one answer : the JAIL
This people subscribe to the site so they need bank account, and with that we can track them
Don t hesitate to complain the web site and other consumers web site
What a shame to play with heart, sometimes human pi**ed me off so much
On singles net I ve meet only payable web cam, bots for XXX site, prostitutes, swingles, cheat and fraud
TO AVOID Absolutly

Thanks, Kuma. I had found that comment online as well, and even tried emailing the contact to see what they'd found, but never got a response. It was from seeing that that I first came upon scamwarners in my research. I appreciate your help!

Filthy scammer wrote;

I hate in my whole life DIVORCE, its not good and also ruin the kids future

As if having their parent scammed by one of these low life thieves wouldn't be bad for their future but he doesn't have a problem with that.


Excuse my manners Scamwary but these scammer do make me mad.

The others have already given you the good advice so I will leave you with one suggestion

Please stay Scamwary