by VRed
Fri Jun 25, 2010 12:44 pm
Up until yesterday I didn't know there was such thing as romance scam...I was talking to this guy, Richard Clooney, who contacted me via eHarmony, for about a month, and while part of me was always suspicious about the way he writes and the things he says, the other part of me was falling for this handsome man in the photos he sent me...
Richard Clooney contacted me via eHarmony, we went through the whole introduction process, then I gave him my email address (he didn’t ask for it) and we started emailing and chatting on Yahoo or MSN messengers. [email protected] is his email. He said he wanted to meet (lives in Greenwich, CT) but I said we should talk on the phone a couple times first. He gave me a landline #203-930-8077 (registered in Greenwich CT but no name), tried calling from that number a couple times but the reception was extremely poor, plus his accent, I couldn’t understanding anything, so asked to call from his cell, he did but there was no number listed, “private caller” it said and he kept it very brief. I did call the landline number myself one time and he did answer, but the reception was still very poor. He said he got a temporary phone while working in UK, from which he had texted me, but never called from there, and when I offered to call him one time he said it's night time right now and my phone is turned off...+447553817246 is the number.
His story: he is Italian, his mother is American, he got his American name from his mom. He moved to USA about 8 years ago, married, has a son who will be 8 on November 5, but his wife Donna died from brain tumor some years ago. They used to live in Illinois, but he is now in Greenwich, CT with his son, and his grandmother who he calls Mom. He is an independent contractor for Shell, and also supplies leather to shoe/bag makers.
About 2 weeks ago he said he won a contract to go do some drilling in UK, the next day he flew to London, then traveled to North Sea where he was coordinating the whole drilling thing. I asked for the name of his oil rig he couldn’t tell me.
While we were chatting on messenger 2 days ago, at some point he said OMG, I just heard a loud noise, have to go, bye…
Yesterday morning he tells me he is in deep trouble, he left the machine on yesterday while he was talking with me, it broke and sunk. He needs to fix the problem ASAP, otherwise his license will get revoked, he will lose everything he’s been working for, and might even go to jail. There is this Chinese company that can come and fix the rig, but they don’t speak English. He needs to hire a translator who requires pay in advance, but he can’t pay him because he is on a boat in the Ocean. He asked me to send $1400 via Western Union to this guy in China and then email him the information. I said I had to go to a meeting, he said he had to go, too, and that’s where we left off yesterday.
Through all this time he’s been sending me emails (I will post copies, as copying one of them into Google brought me to this site), nice little poems, very cute. He said I was meant for him, other women took advantage of him, he said he leads some kind of church in Hartford. Yes lots of grammar errors, but he did say he is Italian so it did make sense. He always asked how my kids were doing, etc. One day, he said he was teaching his son to play the piano (I play piano, but I don’t remember telling him that).
I have about 6 photos from him, tried searching for them through one of the links provided on this site, no luck...Too bad, as the guy in the photos is reacly cute!
This whole thing looked fishy to me, but only from the point where he had to leave to go to UK. He did ask me at some point if I will come pick him up from the airport when he gets back, I said that would not be wise, he got upset. I did ask which airport he would be flying into, he said the nearest one, lol - now it makes sense that he didn’t know the local airport in CT.
Richard Clooney contacted me via eHarmony, we went through the whole introduction process, then I gave him my email address (he didn’t ask for it) and we started emailing and chatting on Yahoo or MSN messengers. [email protected] is his email. He said he wanted to meet (lives in Greenwich, CT) but I said we should talk on the phone a couple times first. He gave me a landline #203-930-8077 (registered in Greenwich CT but no name), tried calling from that number a couple times but the reception was extremely poor, plus his accent, I couldn’t understanding anything, so asked to call from his cell, he did but there was no number listed, “private caller” it said and he kept it very brief. I did call the landline number myself one time and he did answer, but the reception was still very poor. He said he got a temporary phone while working in UK, from which he had texted me, but never called from there, and when I offered to call him one time he said it's night time right now and my phone is turned off...+447553817246 is the number.
His story: he is Italian, his mother is American, he got his American name from his mom. He moved to USA about 8 years ago, married, has a son who will be 8 on November 5, but his wife Donna died from brain tumor some years ago. They used to live in Illinois, but he is now in Greenwich, CT with his son, and his grandmother who he calls Mom. He is an independent contractor for Shell, and also supplies leather to shoe/bag makers.
About 2 weeks ago he said he won a contract to go do some drilling in UK, the next day he flew to London, then traveled to North Sea where he was coordinating the whole drilling thing. I asked for the name of his oil rig he couldn’t tell me.
While we were chatting on messenger 2 days ago, at some point he said OMG, I just heard a loud noise, have to go, bye…
Yesterday morning he tells me he is in deep trouble, he left the machine on yesterday while he was talking with me, it broke and sunk. He needs to fix the problem ASAP, otherwise his license will get revoked, he will lose everything he’s been working for, and might even go to jail. There is this Chinese company that can come and fix the rig, but they don’t speak English. He needs to hire a translator who requires pay in advance, but he can’t pay him because he is on a boat in the Ocean. He asked me to send $1400 via Western Union to this guy in China and then email him the information. I said I had to go to a meeting, he said he had to go, too, and that’s where we left off yesterday.
Through all this time he’s been sending me emails (I will post copies, as copying one of them into Google brought me to this site), nice little poems, very cute. He said I was meant for him, other women took advantage of him, he said he leads some kind of church in Hartford. Yes lots of grammar errors, but he did say he is Italian so it did make sense. He always asked how my kids were doing, etc. One day, he said he was teaching his son to play the piano (I play piano, but I don’t remember telling him that).
I have about 6 photos from him, tried searching for them through one of the links provided on this site, no luck...Too bad, as the guy in the photos is reacly cute!
This whole thing looked fishy to me, but only from the point where he had to leave to go to UK. He did ask me at some point if I will come pick him up from the airport when he gets back, I said that would not be wise, he got upset. I did ask which airport he would be flying into, he said the nearest one, lol - now it makes sense that he didn’t know the local airport in CT.
Last edited by VRed on Fri Jun 25, 2010 12:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Thank you for taking the time to post this, it will help alert others. I'm glad that you've figured out this is a scam; it is definitely a scammer. Please read the topics in the romance scams forum to learn more about this type of scam. If you have no already done so, please stop all contact with the scammer and don't let him know why you were able to identify him as a scammer, we don't want him to improve his methods. Also be on the lookout for any other suspicious emails, the same scammer may try to scam you in other ways with new names.
) and we are seeing an increasing number of scammers who are doing it.
