My story and its incredible end

I am ChrisVorascam, french scambaiter since 2005 september, starting with Julia Brandeau.
I don't know if I am at the right place to post the following. Moderators please, replace this post if needed. Please be lenient if my english seems poor.

I met my scammer on a dating site : Meetic. He cames by Mike Edward, american citizen living in Texas but in Lagos for his job. He said he was a civil engineer working for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corposration.

After some weeks he started to say that he loved me and wanted to meet me very quicly. At this time he asked help from me saying he couldn't be paid and his money was blocked in a nigerian bank, but finally find the solution to send me checks in euro and send back the money to him in $ by Western Union. I received 2 checks and cashed them into my bank account and then send the money back as he wants.

Some days after the first check my bank advised me that the check was false so the other one two.
He sent me again 2 others checks to cash but I did not tell him that my banker said.
At this time I did not know anything about scammers and scambaiting, but I decided to continue to tchat whith him, just to bait him.

Many problems with my bank came because I did have the money anymore and the bank asked to be reimbursed.

Finally I wrote to EFCC Lagos, asked to search this guy and gave them a copy of the scammer student card.
Some months after EFCC agents started to write to me, asking hotmail conversations, copies of the western Union forms, etc...
In 2007 september, they informed me that they had find the scammer and he was now in prison and would be sent soon in front of justice.
I couldn't believe but EFCC agents told me the thrue.

En of 2007, I received this article :


This article is my best trophy.

This story proves that we can act.

What the police force of my country could not make, I done. It is a little sad to say but it's like this.

Now I educate french and europeen people.

http://croque-escrocs.forumparfait.com/
http://blog.ifrance.com/croque-escrocs

Welcome Chris, your english is fine

I am sorry to hear that scammers managed to get money from you but happy that you have learnt to get revenge.

The emails from the EFCC sound like it may have been part of another scam where they will tell you they can recover your money but need you to pay some fees before you can get your money back.

It sounds like you know what to look for now.

Thanks for sharing your story, it's great to hear you are now educating others on the various scams, education is our best weapon for dealing with scammers

Thanks Ralph

I forget to tell that EFCC found and sent me back the money....

I know that scammers used EFFC fake website and mail adresses

Here is the EFFC office in Lagos :

EFCC
15A Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.
Nigeria.
Telephone: +234 1 2624189
[email protected]

EFCC web site is only this one : http://www.efccnigeria.org/

Mail address is always xxxxx@efccnigeria.org and never one like [email protected] or [email protected] or any other extension

@ ChrisVorascam, you have a PM.

THANKS for sharing this, gives me hope that we do matter more than we think here.
Your English is fine and most/some? of us aren't native English writers either, practice makes perfect and I do love the spelling checkers :lol:
And hey you should see my French writing and my stepmother is French :wink:
Thanks :=)

This is indeed an incredible story! What concerns me though is why the moderators have not made this a sticky? Surely if we can fight back using the EFCC then EVERY victim of a 419/Nigerian scam should be aware of it? This story should be on page 1 at the top.
Western Union warned me that 99.9% of anyone asking for money from Lagos is a scammer-his words not mine.

This may be an old story but still a problem nonetheless. I think this site is great and to know that Chris had a victory is great news.

I am one of those so-called 'long time lurkers second time posters' but still have an interest in how we can bring these criminals to justice. I also believe that there is a website also dedicated to fighting these scams. I cant remember the web address, but it is called International Web Police or something and is run by a retired officer in the US.

I agree with Katscorner totally... Moderator team..what can you do about the scam victims. Most of the victims are vulnerable people and not rich. Even $500 means a lot to the victims.

sincerely
Charlie77

Throughout this forum, you will find several references to EFCC, both real and fake, as Nigerian scammers routinely pose as EFCC in an effort to steal even more money. Hundreds, if not thousands, of victims who have posted on this forum have reported their crimes to EFCC. This is the ONLY one who reported getting their money back, and it was 3 years ago now. I have known many more victims who have lost money to a fake EFCC than have been reimbursed by the real one.

In the rare cases of victims who lost relatively small sums being reimbursed, it usually occurs because the scammer was already under investigation for other crimes, or was picked up in a cafe raid such as the one pictured here: http://www.youtube.com/v/ISMgGdaGOJM There were several high profile raids around the time this victim reported their crime, and yes, some victims were reimbursed if the evidence of their scam was on the seized computers.

Certainly, if you know your scammer is operating in Nigeria, reporting him/her to EFCC as well as your own government is an appropriate step. But it is important to understand that EFCC is a relatively small organization, and they are responsible for enforcement against many different types of financial crimes, not only 419. Resources are generally allocated to crimes involving very large sums of money, and those investigations specifically requested by governments of other countries, which is why we more strongly encourage reporting the crime to the appropriate agency in your own country. But the simple fact is, the odds of recovering your money are still extremely low.

If you have been scammed, the best thing you can do is to report the crime, hopefully post the scammer's information to help others avoid being scammed (at this point, education is still the most powerful tool against scammers), and work on rebuilding your life. That is very difficult to do if you are busy holding on to false hope of reimbursement. We did not sticky this topic, because it is NOT typical, and we do not want to encourage false hope.

Charlie77: When I (or anybody here) refers to hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars as a "small" sum of money, we are speaking in terms of the agencies responsible for dealing with these crimes. For EFCC and IC3, who are also dealing with crimes involving hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of dollars, these are small sums of money. Scamwarners staff members--moderators and admins included--are unpaid volunteers. Most of us are here in addition to working full-time to support ourselves and our families, and we can no more afford to lose $500 dollars than many of the victims who come here for support. We are here because we care, and we know that the time spent here makes a difference when it prevents someone from being scammed or helps someone who was scammed to recover. But we do not have any kind of a reimbursement fund, and I don't see anything like that happening in the near future, either.