Nigeria Scam - Oil Rig

Here's another one: Danny September
Same story - widow, son in Germany, father died, wife died 5 years ago, talks a lot about love, going to Manilla to renovate an oil rig, same words, same story, different sentences. Oh wants to reach my heart with his love, etc etc etc... There is a Danny September on eBay from England, who knows!!! He said he is from Houston and that he is going to come see me when he gets back from Manilla. He also said he is going to give me his phone number. I can't wait until he asks me for money to rescue him!
I don't know how to post his picture, I too met him on Match.com.
If they ask you for money you can report it to the FBI! Yes, its true. If you haven't let on that you know its a scam then the FBI can take over and they have people in Nigeria to pick up these guys.

Thanks for the warning!!!!!

Welcome hp2292!

I'm glad you recognized the scam for what it was. If you are corresponding with a scammer using a profile that traces back to your real identity, it is best to drop and ignore him. While he is not going to come visit you any time soon, scammers' petty revenge attempts can cause you problems.

Just to clarify:

If they ask you for money you can report it to the FBI!

If you are in the US, it is certainly a good idea to report to IC3, which is the joint task force that includes the FBI and was established for these types of crimes. Unless one of the parties is involved in the US, the FBI will not be involved in any way. Every country has their own agency responsible for investigating this type of crime.

If you haven't let on that you know its a scam then the FBI can take over and they have people in Nigeria to pick up these guys.

Not true. The FBI does NOT have jurisdiction in Nigeria. If they want to have someone in another country arrested, they have to go through an extremely costly, complicated process to obtain cooperation from the authorities in the scammer's country (and it is not always Nigeria either--while Nigeria is certainly a hotspot for this type of romance scammer, these scammers operate from all over the world.) And at this point, there is nothing to extradite the scammer for. While he intends to commit a crime, if he has only asked for money, and hasn't received him, there are no grounds for extradition.

The scam attempt will be logged and minimal investigation will be performed. Typically only cases involving very large sums of money (hundreds of thousands of dollars) will trigger a deeper investigation. The resources just aren't there for the smaller cases. On very RARE occasion, the FBI will manage to link a large number of smaller cases to the same person/people, and they will take action against scammers who have received smaller sums of money from more victims.

The FBI does NOT encourage people to continue correspondence with scammers in hopes of catching them. If someone is claiming to be the FBI and telling you to continue with the scammer, or is asking for your email login information, unless you are sitting in your local FBI office, do NOT believe it.

The reason that I am making this clear is because scammers frequently take advantage of victims' lack of understanding of how the FBI works. They frequently pose as the FBI, promising that they will get scammers arrested and money returned. In reality, it is just another ploy to steal from the victim.

To anyone reading this thread: If you are contacted by anyone who claims that they are from the FBI and tells you they can get the scammer arrested, it is FAR more likely to be a scammer than it is the FBI.