IAndy Dorofy Collins - Romance scammer?

I may not be posting a reply, but I couldn't quite figure out how to post a new topic. I have been chatting and talking with a fellow named Andy Dorofy Collins for a while now. He states he is falling in love with me, and honestly I was very excited about the possiblity of being in a long term relationship again. I decided to google him, and the google search brought me here. The first search was several lines from other people on this site having had previous online relationships with him. I was soooooo shocked! I was hoping he was as wonderful as he portrayed, and then I find this. Can any one here direct me to some one that knows about this scammer? I have sent him pictures of myself (just vacation snapshots) and a couple of them my daughter is in. I was just reading what scammers can do with pictures, and now I am scared to death. And how do I find out if his pictures are really of him? Please help! I feel like an absolute idiot.

Thanks!
dietdewgirl

Hi dietdewgirl, welcome to Scamwarners.

First things first, you are not an idiot, you had some suspicions and you found us without being scammed by a professional thief and liar, that is actually quite smart of you.

I have split your post to its own topic for now, we might move it later but I thought you deserved your own thread at least until we find somewhere better.

I have not done any searching yet, I will do that soon but for now, it certainly sounds like you have had the misfortune of metting a romance scammer, without seeing some of the emails or perhaps some other information there is no we can be absolutely sure.

Could you please post some of his early emails to you and they might hold the clues we need, please be sure to remove any of your own details before posting.

Many people provide scammers with pictures directly, many more post their pictures all over the internet to be abused by them, while it is not ideal that you have sent your pictures to a scammer it is not the end of the world either.

The good news is that when scammers steal the pictures of women to use in scams they normaly pick pictures of girls between 20 and 30 years old, the girls are usually very attractive and in many cases look like they are models, scammers like to have a variety of pictures, some with family, some with friends and some revealing but very rarely with children included. Most scammers playing the part of a female do not have pretend children.

Obviously I have not seen your pictures or know what kind of photos you sent but going by averages I would guess your photos would not be quite as good as other photos the scammer may be able to steal from somewhere else.

Had you been a man who sent similiar pictures it may have been much different.

Now, what to do about the scammer, the first thing is do not reply, completely ignore him, if he emails, ignore it, if he rings, hang up, do not reply to him at all and eventually he will leave you alone.

Definately do not tell him you know he is a scammer and absolutely do not point him here

If you have any questions please ask, meanwhile please take a look through the informational topics in our romance scams section

thank you so much for the reply...i will post the emails he sent me. i have saved all of them. i also have the pictures and i can send his if i can figure how to post them. and i can also send you the pix of my daughter and i that i sent him if you think that would be helpful. they are just vacation snapshots and while cute defintiely not revealing AT ALL lol.

thanks again, and i will post his emails asap,
dietdewgirl

p.s i was thinking i would continue to communicate with him and try and see if i can get the police involved to catch him. what do you think?

We generally don't recommend continuing with a scammer who has your real information. The scammer is not going to physically harm you, but if he realizes you have been playing him, he may retaliate by posting negative things about you online, etc. -- and his threats, even though they are idle, can be a bit intimidating.

Continuing correspondence won't help him to get caught, either. All names he has given you are fake, and phone numbers will be untraceable redirects or cell phones. He will continue to lie through your correspondence, and even if he "confesses" he will simply tell more lies in hopes of getting money. In addition, there is nothing the police in your country can do about this scammer. He is nowhere near your country--most likely he is in Africa or Malaysia--and even if you had his real identity, the authorities in those countries will do nothing to pursue a case against the scammer.

There is no need to send your real pictures to anybody, you can be your own judge as to how likely it would be for a scammer to use them;

As for the scammers pictures we do have an informational topic on how to post pictures Here but if you have trouble I can give you an email address to forward them to me and I can post them for you.