HELP ME TO CLARIFY IF THIS IS A SCAMMING CASE

In the ends of November one guy contacted me. He said he found me in a very popular dating website (not social network).
We started a serious of chatting giving me the following information.
He is from eastern Europe, when he was young his parents died. Raised by the rest of his family in UK, he moved to NYC to study geological engineering. He became the owner of a consultorship drilling company.
He got married but he lost his wife 2 years ago. He has a 8y.o daughter. He travels a lot due to his work, and since his daughter suffered a depressive shock for her mother’s death, she has difficulties while establishing relationship with other kids, therefore he has a private mentor for her, and she travels wherever he goes.
December passed with chatting almost every day, and phonecalls. He has an UK/queens accent. Telephone number from NYC is valid and normal. In one of his answering machines her daughter appears talking and saying “leave your message”.
In some phonecalls, I could hear the daughter in the background.
Early January he had to go to UK to a drilling project that his company had. He buys a cellphone there which code is +44 77 (I’ve readed that +4470 are scamming numbers).
The difference in timing zones was very obvious, therefore chatting diminished and more phonecalls with beautiful words happened.
Mid January he sends me flowers to my workplace in south America.
1 week ago he told me he has a new project in Cameroon. But before he has to buy equipment for his workers. He travels to Cameroon and he sends me the booking info of his 8and his daughter) flight. It came from an agent called Jerry Lewis which email was info@(don’t remember).com.
Once in Cameroon he says that one part of the equipment hasn’t arrived and he need my help to track via website the package since in the platform (offshore) internet signal is not too good.
The courrier’s website is netdeliveryexpress.com, there I had to enter a tracking number to see the package, which says that it is already in Cameroon but is represed by customs.
He asks me to send an email to info@ netdeliveryexpress.com to see what happens with the package.
Other fact: when he goes to the platform (leaving daughter inland with a nanny brought from UK), he says that company gave him a phone number, but it has a Nigerian code. The argument was that Nigeria and Cameroon share a common boundary and the platform is closer to Nigeria that to Cameroon land.

I don’t know what to think about this. There were 2 months very nice, I almost fall in love with this guy. He has send me pictures of him and his daughter, but im very confused.

I need help to clarify everything, please help me to check if all this is true.
THANK YOU!

Hi there Bragnino,

I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment, so please forgive me the short reply.I checked the website of the courier service, and it is most definately fake. It has been listed in aa419's database of fraudulent websites, and is waiting for someone to write a report to go offline. The story he told you is a classic story told by many romance scammers:

*parents died at young age
*single parent
*some sort of engineer job
*Vague excuse about Nigerian references (in most cases they have a 'project' there)

Soon there will be payments involved where you have to send money to the customs, so they can release the package. Please break off all contact, post all his emails and email adresses here so they can be found by other people

Welcome to Scamwarners.
That is a scam I'm afraid and a typical example. 4470 numbers aren't cellphones, but free numbers that redirect calls abroad. So scammers pretending to be British, use them widely.

DOMAIN: NETDELIVERYEXPRESS.COM
created-date: 2010-08-19 06:15:11
updated-date: 2010-08-19 09:19:11
registration-expiration-date: 2011-08-19 06:15:12

A fake site already reported here http://db.aa419.org/fakebankslist.php?p ... earchtype=
But as it is registered in Nigeria, getting it shut down seems to be taking longer than usual.

Hi there Bragnino,

I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment, so please forgive me the short reply.I checked the website of the courier service, and it is most definately fake. It has been listed in aa419's database of fraudulent websites, and is waiting for someone to write a report to go offline. The story he told you is a classic story told by many romance scammers:

*parents died at young age
*single parent
*some sort of engineer job
*Vague excuse about Nigerian references (in most cases they have a 'project' there)

Soon there will be payments involved where you have to send money to the customs, so they can release the package. Please break off all contact, post all his emails and email adresses here so they can be found by other people

There are still some issues that are flying in my head: US number, daughter speaking perfect US english in the background, his phonecalls to me. After the problem (3h ago) he called me talking about trust and even though i was not convinced at all of his intentions, somehow he sounded belivable. If this is a scam (90 per cent sure it is) are my bank account in danger?

I'm sorry to have to say this, but you need to change that 90% to 100%. There is absolutely no doubt this is a scammer.

This is a textbook scam storyline with absolutely nothing original about it. If you post some of his emails, we can most likely show you many other signs in his writing. Look around at other examples of romance scams, and you will see that trust is an extremely common theme--the scammer will use trust as a weapon--trying to make you feel guilty for not trusting him, reminding you of how important trust is to a relationship, etc. In reality it is simple--he is doing this because his story has some holes in it, and he needs your blind trust so you don't look too closely.

The fake delivery company confirms that there is absolutely no way he can be anything but a scammer. It is a fake website for a nonexistent company, already verified fake beyond a doubt. The website is not connected to a real company. There is no real physical location for someone to drop off a package, and no employees to pick one up. These fake websites are used solely to support scams, and provide a bogus tracking number, so that the victim believes in a fake package. Later, the package will be held up somewhere, and the victim will be asked to send fees to release the package from customs. If he sent you to one of these websites, then he knows it is fake, because it means he never sent a package.

We have seen many scammers with NY phone numbers--those numbers are usually magicjack numbers or VPN--both allow the scammer to have a NY number while actually scamming from Africa. The photos of a father and daughter he sent to you are real--he just took someone else's photos off the internet. As far as the girl's voice in the background goes, some scammers are clever enough to use a soundboard or play a recording (or even the right television show) in the background--it is actually quite easy to do. Scambaiters do things like that all the time to support their storylines. And 44-77 numbers are not UK cellphones, as has already been pointed out.

Some members here also 'bait' scammers, which is a way to annoy them and waste their time, and I have a 44 70 telephone number which is useful because it hides my real location. Your scammer sounds like a smart one and he uses a trick I use which is to place a recording from the internet on his answerphone. I have one of a female speaking in Russian because I also like to have fun when I'm baiting, but this is more than an ordinary scammer does, so you must be very cautious, and it isn't unknown for a scammer to speak with an English or American accent.

As the the others have said, there is no doubt that he's a liar and a scammer, but a smart one, and you can tell how experienced they are from how long it takes them to get round to asking for money. The inexperienced and foolish ones do it after just a few weeks or even straight away, and keep in mind that an experienced scammer has experience in stealing money from victims. Once he gets round to asking you to send him cash, he'll pile on the pressure and emotional blackmail. Once he has painted a picture of himself in your mind as the perfect romantic partner, he'll try to convert your affection to cash. His love will die very quickly if you don't pay up, but these scammers are only looking for money, not romance.