Proving that scammers are scammers

I have been communicating with a person who has been sending money to scammers, at this stage I will not say too much about this person but he will know who he is, I have directed him to scamwarners and I will direct him to this post so that we can communicate with him from here and help him to understand that the people he has been dealing with are in fact scammers.

Just adding if this scam victim, I will Call him "D" for now is reading, I have checked the picture of the box of money you have sent me and we do have that photo here in our fake documents and pictures section, I gave you a link to that part of our site, it is the very first picture in the very first topic.

Here is the same picture you sent me that you said looked legitimate, yes it does look legitimate but it is only a photo and certainly not a picture of the money you are about to recieve

This is a well known picture, the same is being used by scammers doing the so-called trunk-box scam, in which the victim is made believe that these boxes are real, filled with money and placed at some European "security company", often in Spain, Amsterdam, or London (among other possible places, whereever scammers live, and they operate from worldwide anonymity, since all personal details they give are fake).

They work in groups, the "security company" consists of accomplices of these fraudsters, they are able to produce very convincing looking "documents".

Unfortunately it is all nothing but a fraud attempt. Nothing else. They are criminals.

The "security company" demands "fees" from the victim. Or any other "fees" occur, involving more fees. They promise this will be the last one but it won´t. Never. This is the anatomy of the scam.

Usually, they demand the money via Western Union since this is an anonymous way of receiving money (unlike a bank transfer). They can appear with their fake names at any WU outlet and cash the money as long as they know the test question and answer, name of sender. Most WU banks do not demand the receiver to show a passport.

I´m sorry to hear D has already lost money to them, most likely in the manner described above. This has happened and continues to happen many thousand times over the past years and is in fact a common kind of internet fraud well covered in this and other forums. These criminals are clever and good in what they do, they are professional liars and document forgers and often (but not always) highly organized, with international contacts.

Ralph, is there a way to show that these particular scammers, their names and phone numbers, the "security company" and their contact details, have already turned up in mulltiple scams? It is very likely that they are already well-known and posted on different scam warning websites. Did the victim give your their contact details or their original email?

Hopefully a research will convince D that all money he would continue to send to this group will be lost, and all money already sent there unfortunately IS lost, because there is no security company, the story is fake, they are a criminal gang that promises non-existing money in order to steal money from many (possible and real) victims, who are all sent the same emails to and who are all being told the same story.

I'll add this in case it might help.

Your scammer will send you all sorts of things (photos, certificates, ID cards, signed documents) to prove that he is for real. Here's how you can verify for yourself that it's all fake:

Start up a new e-mail address under an assumed name with a free e-mail provider like gmail or fastmail. Then contact your scammer as if replying to the same introduction letter your received from him. If he responds with this "confidential" offer to your new e-mail account, you've just confirmed that he's a scammer.

DO NOT confront him on the issue after you've discovered the truth, because that will not accomplish anything except make him a little better at scamming.

Thanks for the responses Johann and Obi,

D has sent me a few of the emails he has recieved but has asked me not to post them publicly, I have done some searches on various parts of the emails and I have sent him some proof that they are in fact scammers.

There is a fake barrister involved who uses a yahoo email address, there is a courier company using a gmail account which I have proven to be fake and there is a "girl" she has had the sick mother with no money for travel, she needed 3 months rent paid for and now has told D of money she needs his help with.

From what D has told me, he has been sending money for 3 months and would most likely be targeted by a recovery scam as soon as he stops sending money and communicating with the scammers.

I have given him various links to searches as well as the relevant parts of this site but his last email sent about 9 hours ago to me was to advise that he still believes this girl to be legitimate.

He has contacted WU who advised him that the person who picked up the money was a girl using his scammers name so the scammer must be legitimate, as Johann suggested, the person picking up the payments needs only have the test question and answer to pick up the money.

I have no idea on how much money has been lost but I hope there is no more money sent.

The vic is from the US and is most likely still in bed, very early on a Sunday morning, lets hope he wakes up and sees the proof I have gathered for him and realises that he has in fact been scammed

A few examples of the same box can be seen if you type "scam+money+trunk" into Google and then hit the image button at the top.

Here it is

Yes, that trunkbox full of cash is well known, I have received that same image numerous times over the last 4 years whilst baiting scammers, on the www.scamorama.com site they have a page showing many trunkbox images that were sent to potential victims by scammers, you will note that on the link below, that image is called "the classic", due to it having been used in so many scams, see this link and scroll down the page:

http://www.scamorama.com/moneypic.html

I have only a quick moment for an update but D has emailed me thanking me for saving him from being scammed further, he is reading this thread and will be along shortly


D, I know you have access to this so I will post here as it is much more convenient.

To register to this site you need to click on the Forum link, you will see at the top a link to "Register" click on that, from there it is fairly simple, even I could do it and that was before I learnt from the others here you will need provide an email address and make up a password but that is all you need to do, once done I am sure the others here would like to hear that you are safe.