Romance Scam ? - Medical student from UK goes to Nigeria...

... and runs out of money.

Hi all, my Name is Scrat and i think i fell for a romance scammer the last seven weeks.

"lonely medic" contacted me at the start of august on the german dating platform http://www.finya.de with a nothing saying initial message:

Hi, Im Scarlett 26 years old from England. Im single and Im looking for love... I have no kids and never been married. Im a medical student and I have a little art business.. What about you? What are you looking for and what do you do?

After asking, why an UK-based girl from Ipswich would be searching on a german site she said, she would be interested in german guys, because we'd handle our women so nicely. After that, we exchanged some messages on the plattform, switching soon to email ( [email protected] ) , and, after having trouble with Y!M we ended on MSN Messenger.

Her background (presented in a good english - as far as i can tell this as an non-native speaker) was a medical student, going to finish her degree next year and having a small (african) arts sale currently on pause. Quite religious ("Bethseda Baptist" as a continous typo?) and living near to her mum. Father died some time ago in a car accident and left some small heritage which brings her through the studies. Now her mum evolved some rhenal / kidney problems and needed an operation soon in the future. Because of this she'd need to travel to nigeria and sell some property which her father left her.
So far, so good, no money begging or else. Quite nice and high educated conversation till this point, as far as i can tell. Got some very deep chats and git quite intimate at a point (ahem).

Well, then she got to nigeria at the start of the week, met a local lawyer which should be helping with selling, had access to the internet via a wobbly access in the hotel or in a internet cafe down the street (and to her messengers, etc). Once her mails was sent from her Nokia, which just tingled something way back in my head.. roaming costs, anyone?
But today, she discovered she had run out of money, food would be extremly expensive and she'd need some money asap. If i could send some via western union.. Errrh - warning lights going off!
Shouldnt a gal from the UK have a credit card and getting new cash at a local bank? And western union? wait a moment... after me hesitating ("dont send money to someone you never met.") and asking her about WU which i never used before, especially for recipient details we need to give if i interpret the forms correctly, she said i should send the money to her lawyer, a Mr. Olumide ... at this point i heavily started googling for scams with this setup... i found nothing, but got more and more suspicious. By the time i didnt react on MSN for several minutes there was this "You there?"... and i decided to kill MSN off... and got some minutes later an email asking what happened.

Im still not totally convinced i'm having been chatting with romance scammer for the last weeks, but i'm also not sure if there's now a girl down in nigeria running out on cash and just desperate.

Any comments / recommendations?


TL;DR: medical student, from the uk, Ipswich, small african arts sale, father dead, mother ill, travel to nigeria, to sell heritage, running out of money, asking to help, send money via western union ... = romance scammer?

Hello scrat!

I'm very sorry to say all that you have posted are signs of a romance scam. Your suspicions that brought you here are correct. I'm afraid to tell you the person you have been comunicating with is not from the UK. Probably not even a women but a West African man. Romance scammers often find their victims on dating sites. They try and get you to a personal email exchange instead of chatting on the site as soon as possible because their profiles are often shut down quickly. They tell a back story like the one you posted. Eventually it comes to money like this one. The lawyer or barrister is just the scammer playing another victim.

You can read a lot more about romance scams here http://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=13

This is also a great self test to see if your in contact with a romance scammer.
http://www.romancescam.com/cgi-bin/scam ... ianscammer

If you could post some of the emails and the email addresses being used it will help others who may be suspicious and search avoid this as well.

Justin

I'm very sorry to say all that you have posted are signs of a romance scam. Your suspicions that brought you here are correct.

Meh.
Thought so. .. but good to hear this suspicions confirmed.

I'm mostly annoyed by myself, working as a security consultant.. ahem. Everybody's making mistakes, right?


The email address used is/was sbyard112@gmail ... and i can't get any sender IP from the headers due to this. Anyway, gonna post the portal messages and mails till we switched to IM.

lonelymedic045 18. Juni 2011, 15:46 Uhr
Hi, Im Scarlett 26 years old from England. Im single and Im looking for love... I have no kids and never been married. Im a medical student and I have a little art business.. What about you? What are you looking for and what do you do?

Hi SCRAT, thanks for the response. I seem to like German men and I try my luck here.. What are you looking for exactly and if you dont mind you can shoot me a mail to [email protected]..
I will be expecting your mail soon...

Hey SCRAT, thanks for your mail.. I will surely send you a mail and make sure you dont keep late nights ok?? I like the way german men respect there women I was in berlin for a medical workshop. Expect my mail soon...
Lett x x

(switch to email exchange)

Hello SCRAT, Its Scarlett here.. I hope to get you..
If you get the mail I will like to hear from you and appreciate a
couple of photos..
Scarlett Asha BYARD x x

Hi SCRAT, nice to read from you and there you here.. nice picture
too. its a Fiat convertible.. I dont know much about cars but it
belongs to a friend's dad.. Im sorry you didnt see my eyes but I do
hope you like them when you see them.. they quite large..hehehe:D

Yes, I just told you to get back home soon and dont stay till late in
the night. I dont go out after 7.30pm ..

Cool.. I see I was just about to ask you if you went to University and
you had a nice degree. Yes, I encourage you to work hard because I do
work hard too and I see the result. Im sure you too must have seen the
result of hard work but make sure you dont stress yourself out and do
get good rest when you have time to do..

Yes I was in Berlin .. Berlin is such a great place.. I was at
Stanford University for a medical workshop for 2 weeks so I didnt have
much time for pleasure as I was there for academics.
Its a nice place but I dont think I have any problems coming to Berlin
as long as I find my beloved. What exactly are you looking for and
please tell me more about yourself..

Scarlett x

Hi SCRAT, im sorry i didnt reply your mail i was down with flu and
school also took much of my time as well. I saw your link the car z4,
it looks nice. Should i take your comment about my eyes as a
compliment? Its ok, thanks for comments, my eye colour is grey and i
do wear glasses. The dr title will be attached to my name in about
13months when i'l throw my hats up...hehehe..a friend of mine too
belongs to your school of thought. You have a good job and do you like
it and whats your dream appointment? So you are like looking for your
woman do you think you have the patience to make it work? How many
women have you met online and what was your experience with them and
do you believe i might be the one you are looking for? I hope you are
having a nice week..enjoy your day. Scarlett x

Hi, how are you? Its ok and nice to finally read from you. I major in
gynaecology and i started med school 5 years ago. Im busy at the
moment just stopped by to drop you a little note! Talk to you later.
Lett x

Hi SCRAT, how are you? Hows it going? Yes I was a hell busy this past week and didnt have much time to check my emails but I had to let you know I got your mail. Good to see you are really pulling on well enough and I can see you had a busy week as well.. Weekend are good relief when the week is hell busy. Your seem so much concerned about the thesis and you are also getting paid for doing your work.. Sounds awkward but at least quite interesting and I love it.... You should enjoy . For your question, choosing gynaecology wasnt an easy choice for me, Im in med school on bursary as a benefit after dad's demise. So with a free ride through uni education why not do something worthwhile with the chance. I wanted to become a teacher actually because of my passion for kids but with gynaecology, my passion for kids comes to play and infact i tend to have passion to treat women right.. So I decided to go for gynaecology. My art business is actually on hold at the moment because of school..

I do sell African art masterpieces. I do show them at galleries in London, Ipswich and sometimes I do travel during art exhibitions too. It takes most of my time and its not that financially rewarding but its ok. I hope to be back to it soon. Once there are good offers, I make my sales but its not top priority at the moment. So who are the guests?? I guess they must be Cats! Am I right?? Who are the Girls too?? SCRAT, do you have yahoo messenger? We could chat at times or what do you think? Have a nice evening and take care! Lett x

Good morning SCRAT, thanks so much for such a nice mail. I'm sorry for my poor appearances on yahoo messenger but if you have msn messenger we can meet online tonight on msn and add me on [email protected] and i'll be there. My yahoo messenger has been corrupted. So let catch tonight. And we can talk more on your mail tonight. Nice photo there SCRAT. You look cute. See you tonight, have a nice day. Lett x

(I'll skip the next three weeks as we possibly left the script and just post the "love note" i got this week)

Hi my dear,
I'm usually not the kind of person that would write a love letter, but
I thought i'd do this for you because you are the the most wonderful
thing in my life right now. You are sweet, loving, caring, handsome,
and you make me feel like one of the luckiest girls in the world.

I know that we can't be near each other very much at the moment, but
if we just put up with being apart for a bit longer it will all work
out and it'll be worth it in the end. I want to spend the rest of my
life with you. I want us to grow old together. I hope this is only the
beginning.

As the day fades away and slips into night, I find myself once again
clinging to my prayers. Every night I pray to God that he will keep
you in his arms. I pray that he keeps you out of harm's way until we
can finally be together.

When I think of you, my heart is so full of love and passion for you
that I can hardly contain myself. I think of spending every minute of
every day with you and holding you so close to me. Whenever you think
of me, please know that no matter how many miles separate us or how
much of our lives comes between us, you are always on my mind..Like
the saying goes, "Distance makes the heart grow fonder."

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever believe this would ever happen.
I never expected to fall so deeply in love so fast. It all started
with my first email to you and your first email to me. I was just
online trying to catch up with some friends and I had the pleasure of
seeing your email message in my mailbox.

You are many miles and so many moons away and I get lonely just
thinking of the distance between us, yet in my heart you are just a
beat away. When I feel blue, I picture you with me on a moon-lit night
holding hands and planning our great future together. I think of the
good times to come when I will be embraced by your love. I will be
patient, my dear, because I know good things come to those who wait.
Until then I will be loving you.

I hope you like what I wrote? Im not the love letter type but I really
tried my best here my dear..
GOOD NIGHT! and dream about me

Lett x x

The writing style is West African and not someone from the UK. The use of "dear" is one of the most tell tell signs. As you said your not a native English speaker and would have no way of knowing this. It is probably one of the things the scammer is counting on.

If there was any doubt left just google the email address [email protected] Tons of hits on various anti-scam websites along with dating sites.

Again I'm sorry you got involved with this scammer but don't be hard on yourself just be glad to be a little more educated about it now. People from all walks of life can get involved with romance scammers. I would wish all people that got to the point you did would also start getting suspicious and do some searching as you did. The scammer only wins when he gets money.

Justin

Great, now i feel stupid - i always googled the name, not the email address *head->desk*

Edit:
And way more offensive - that arse even used a way hotter girl as avatar on one of those other plattforms. I didnt even got the premium service...

Please don't feel stupid just a little more knowledgeable now.

Hi

Four days ago i met the same person, in the dating site http://www.twoo.com, specific for Norway.

In her profile page says that she's a norwegian girl that lives in England since she was 6 years old. But she would like to return because she's tired about english men. She signs with the name SAB ( Scarlett Asha Brandsen ) and uses the photo of a blond and smily girl. I wrote a bit in norwegian, but she said the she doesn't understand because since she was a child lives in England.

We talked a bit and we changed to msn. She explained that she finished her medical degree in Gynaecology, she lives in Ipswich and her origins are from Drammen ( near Oslo ), until here i never thought that was a scammer. Yesterday I sended to her my blog portfolio and I saw the first wrong thing. I have a Live feed application and I can see from what country people connects...and I saw Nigeria.

Yesterday we didn't talk and today sended an e-mail at 4 o´clock in the morning and other one hour ago. It was this last mail that activated my 'alarm mode' , she said womething about the Bible and something more..... the rest of the history is easy, I searched her e-mail and I finished her.

Her last mail

Hey hows you? Ok, now I get this.. but its ok and Im glad about your mindset.. the Bible even confirms that we shouldnt despise the day of little beginnings and I pray for you from the depth of my heart that this is just the beginning of great things.. anyways how is your day going and what have you got planned up for the week? I'm hanging out at a friend's store, I will be work there for a while till I get my certificate and learn more about business transactions.. hope you are having a nice time... take care and chat soon...
SAB

[email protected]
Her mail:

Hello Rigormortis!

As you suspect this is a romance scammer. I'm glad you saw the warning signs before loosing any money. Thank for posting the details here it will help others avoid this scammer.

Justin