by junren71
Sat Feb 23, 2013 7:19 pm
Over the past 9 months I have been hit by all three of these scams with the romance scam used to set up the inheritance and money recovery scams. I met a woman using the name Julia Armstrong on Facebook 9 months ago. She quickly asked to switch to Internet Messenger, then shortly to Google Talk. I was sent pictures both sexual and not. (Only recently did I Google search one of the images ---the one I thought made her so innocent looking---and the flood gates of porn star videos opened.) I was asked how much I made from my job (am retired). I was asked for money very quickly, and I sent it. And I sent it and sent it for 8 months while Julia was supposedly residing in the UK trying to get her inheritance. I continued to send money for living expenses and, in larger amounts, money more than once to "clear" her inheritance to bring it to the United States. Very quickly Western Union and Money Gram stopped me from sending money directly to Julia Armstrong. I was then told to send money to others she named and to use XOOM.com which is a reputable bank clearing house, but used for me to get money to Julia through others. I used bank to bank electronic methods to send larger sums to continually "chase to clear" the inheritance. "Clearing" the inheritance was actually the name for an advance fee scam. I gave her money to fly to where I lived and she didn't show up. The next time I bought the ticket myself, and again she didn't show up, but at least it was only available for me to get the refund. By this time I was allowing myself to get hooked into another aspect of the romance scam and that was to attempt to save her from the life of being a scammer. The advance inheritance fee also continued with the money (supposedly 4.7 million USD allegedly being smuggled out of the UK to the U.S. by a "diplomat." I paid another $10,000 to have it delivered to my home where I agreed to take delivery of it. I was at least half-way smart enough to state in every e-mail I would immediately inform the IRS so taxes were paid and to any other government agency to determine legality of the money. Immediately upon arrival in the United States, the "diplomat" ran a red light and the police arrested him, took him to the police station, somehow scanned the trunk and determined there was money in it, and the diplomat saved the day by telling the police he was taking it to Malaysia for his diplomat brother-in-law. When I told Julia of this, she allegedly ran off to take "poison." I had no way of contacting her other than Google Talk, no phone number or physical location to send EMS to. So, I had two scammer made crises to deal with. Then I began receiving e-mails from [email protected] about Julia's medical status. Royal London Hospital does not inform friends or family by e-mail, and the e-mail address cam up "dirty" on Fraudwatchers.org, meaning it had already been noted as an address used by criminals. So then I am left alone to deal with the diplomat. At this point I was getting deeper and deeper in my self-made scam of myself of wanting and needing to save Julia from her life of scamming. Meanwhile at the inheritance part, the diplomat said he needed $27,000 to buy some super secret cleaning fluid because the currency was blackened to prevent theft. Luckily, I had read about this need to "wash the money" as being at the heart of inheritance scams, plus I was all scammed out financially. My relationship with Julia was getting strained----she had recovered but with amnesia. Anyway, she again said she would come to me but she wanted the money sent in cash to buy her own ticket. I did not send it. Julia was getting more and more frantic to get money from me and was telling very fantastical stories she couldn't remember one lie from the next. I took this as another sign she needed to get out of the life. I had created a delusion. None of it was true. Now, nearing the end the diplomat is going to attempt to get my money returned to me. I am positive the next step is to ask for an advance fee from me. They won't get it. People involved: Julia Armstrong, Lynda Joseph (a barrister who never capitalizes her "i's."), Nwangu (in Spain) Leslie Barnes (an illiterate barrister), and Brian Edwards (also not very literate) who played the role of the diplomat. I have all my receipts from WU, MG, XOOM, my e-mails and Google Talks requesting money to send to Julia or her designee, cashier's check receipts, and bank wire transfer forms. To make a long story short, the romance scam worked perfectly on me, especially the rescuing of her part. Which helped the inheritance scam to work at least up until Edwards wanted $27,000, and the money recovery won't work. I have reported all of this to the FBI (IC3), Interpol, and Homeland Security because of the potential money smuggling. Getting all this stuff together at the end is something I am not sure I have any energy left to do. But one thing makes me feel good is I now have money left at the end of this month to save, because I don't have to pay these low-lifes another dime. BTW, they used substitutes for Julia on a regular basis, including using men. And because of a man, that makes me want to vomit. All e-mails have IP addresses in the 10.x.x.x block so they are on a private network. All during this time every red flag waved, every red stop light flashed, and every siren blew, but I kept right on going off the cliff.
