My Identity was hijacked and used in a scam

I recently was made aware that MY name and photographs are being used in a “Romance Scandal”.

Last week I was contacted by a woman named Agnes who had met a man going by the name [email protected]. She met him through an online social dating site called hi5.com.

Apparently, Agnes met this individual who provided her with pictures of himself and his teenage daughter. He told her a huge sob-story about how he was a widower, single parent, lonely, empty and looking for the right woman. Over time, they developed a “relationship” and Agnes thought she had fallen in love.

This imposter then began luring Agnes into the classic “Vacation/Leave” scam where he told her that in order for him to take leave to see her she would first have to pay up front. The guy even had a price list ($1500 = two weeks, $2500 = 1 month, $3500 = three months).

Somewhere along the way, Agnes was tipped off that she was being scammed. She then started her own search for the real “Erik Wolf” and she found me. She then emailed me to inform me that my identity had been hijacked and was being used to scam women. She even emailed me all the pictures she had been sent. I was shocked to see that these were (in fact) my pictures. It appears the scammers got them from facebook.

I was even more surprised to see that the scammers were brazen enough to use my name. Granted, they changed the spelling slightly but still they go by “Erick Wolf”. Needless to say, I was pissed.

I have filed reports with my local police, the FBI and the Internet Crime Complaint Center (ic3). Everyone I spoke to was sympathetic to my situation but the general consensus from all of them is that there really isn’t anything I can do except protect myself. Well, I’ve taken the steps to protect myself and now I am taking steps to warn others.

I suppose this may do nothing more than just add my name to a long list of usurped identities but at least people can be warned.

Welcome to ScamWarners. I am sorry to hear this happened to you. You are correct that many people's photos are taken by scammers and used to scam people.

We strongly encourage people to close their social networking site profiles so strangers cannot see them.

We also discourage people from looking for the person whose information has been stolen because there is nothing you can really do. It is frustrating as you have indicated.

Exposing the scammer is the best thing to do.

Please be careful that you don't get pulled in by anyone saying that for a fee they can help you. That would be a scam too.

Thank you for posting here.

Welcome Erik,

I'm sorry you have been put in this position, though as you realize, you are not alone.

As you have undoubtedly already learned, the scammer is halfway across the world, out of the reach of local authorities, and even the US military, so you are taking the best action possible. By posting here, you will help future targets to avoid being scammed, and reducing the likelihood that a confused victim or friend/family member will mistakenly believe that you are the person behind any fake profiles that come up. This does happen from time to time, and it can be very difficult for the innocent person whose photos are being used.

The scammers already have your photos, so there is nothing you can do about that--but scammers will only use fake identities that bring them money. By posting, you are also increasing the likelihood that victims will walk away--and if enough do, the scammers will drop your identity in favor of ones that are more profitable.

As Bubbles suggested, managing your online presence can help to reduce future risk. Closing any old social networking profiles (for example if you have an old myspace page or anything you no longer use), and turning up the privacy level on any current ones can help. If you have a public page and want (or need) to keep it public, posting a warning on it can help. You can also mark or stamp photos that you do publicly post in some way if you feel it is worthwhile--for example, putting a website link or even an email address you control over part of the photo will make it much less desirable for most scammers, as they can't control what he victim learns from the photo. As you have probably noticed, we typically mark photos here, as we don't want to become a source for scammers--they may go ahead and get photos from somewhere else, but we don't have to make it any easier for them.