military

i have been talking to this person who claims to be a United States solider and i want to know if he is a scammer or not. cause i have recieved a letter from the United States Defense and they are asking me if i have been in contact with this solider. and i replied yes. and they replied back saying that is due for a rank update and im not even a next of kin and then i was wondering is there anything that i can do to prove that this email is real.

[AlanJones]

It certainly sounds like a scam, only in scammer's minds are random people met on the Internet treated like next of kin.

A sure way to tell is to look at the email from the United States Defense, does the email address that appears when you hit reply end with .mil or .gov. If not, then it is likely a free email address and it is a scammer.

Hello broken_hearted!

As Alan said it has the makings of a scam. If you would post the emails we can tell you for sure.

Justin

Hi broken_hearted.
It also sounds sus to me. If possible, could you post the header of the email too? Usually has much useful info contained within them.

Promotions in the US military are handled internally. There is no reason at all that an outsider (even a relative) would be involved. The US military is a very structured, closed organization, and everything from promotions to leave to criminal activity are handled within their own chain of command, without any outsider involvement.

It is also important to understand that as far as the US military is concerned, someone a soldier has only met through email (no matter how extensive the email contact) has no legitimate connection to the soldier. In the rare situations in which family would be contacted, it would not be by email--and someone in your position would not be on the contact list, period.

So, based on this information--there is absolutely no doubt--this is a scam. However, this promotion angle is a rather unique variation of the scam, so posting it to help other victims could be extremely important. Please do post the emails, even though it is already a definite scam.