I need your help please...

This is my first time on here so please bear with me if I get it wrong!
I recently received a message from someone I didn't know on FB. It was polite and I replied saying I thought he had the wrong person and didn't think anytihng of it. He then replied and we started exchanging messages.
I have always been told that if something seems too good to be true, it's because it is. But I don't want to live my life in suscipsion either.

The guy's name is John Williams (from Escondido, California)and this is on his FB info page:

I am a Man with a goals of becoming a good husband to my wife, a good father to my kids and all kids though i am a widowed. I'm a German born by birth; I grew up and spent most of my life in Netherlands , before I finally moved down to the USA. Well am very Romantic person.i give all i can do to make a lady to feel for me.i will always make her happy wont hurt her.i will never lie to her.i will be 100% honest and sincere to her but i will like her to do the same for me.

He has the bible listed as a favourite book and on his wall he has the odd bibical reference. He is hardly on his FB account and certainly not while I am on there. He only communicates through messages as he hasn't asked me to be a friend. He said he wanted to chat and gave me his yahoo account (johnwill3710) to contact him at. He is hardly ever on but once I did get to chat to him.

Some of the messages he has sent have contained quotes from romance sites and I have spotted these. I tell myself he uses them because his English isn't the best and the quotes say what he wants to say.

I just don't know what to make of it all. I have been doing alot of thinking about what I want out my life as there are many things I am unhappy with and want to change it but feel lost as to what direction I should take. I prayed for a sign (and I am not a religious person) to show me the way. My sign was this guy's first message. Am I being gulliable in thinking it was actually a sign or was it just coincidence? I should add that John has not asked me for any money either.

Another thing I struggle with is the inconsistant contact. Sometimes I will get a message once a day then it will be a few days before I get another.Is keeping irregular contact a scammers trick (from what I read I thought it was the opposite) or is it because he is in Scotland (he told me he was there for work for the next 3 months) and doesn't have much computer access?

I know often there is no way to find out if the person you are corresponding with is real, but if I can know one way or the either it would give me a alot of peace.
Things like this just don't happen to me and I am nervous it's all a scam. If I'm honest though there is a large part of me (the romantic side!) that wants it to be real.

So any advice, suggestions etc. would be most gratefully received .

These are the first messages I received (the very first email I had deleted):

John Williams February 5 at 7:30pm Report
Hey Beautiful. Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. You are the greatest gift to my eyesight is having my eyes set on you on Face book. I must confess that it's only God's creations can compare to the beauty that I see in you. How are you doing?

John
February 7 at 12:08pm
Hi there, thank you once again for your compliments. I have to ask, how did you happen to come across my photo on Facebook? There are literally millions of people on here and I wonder how you came across mine. I checked your profile to see if we had any mutual friends and I saw you have one friend and it is definitely not some one I know. I am trying to work out if you are being sincere or not

John Williams February 8 at 2:00am Report
Okay Let me start by introducing myself. My name is John Williams, am 50yrs. I look into your profile and you looks like someone that people would like to get to know, well, I was just browsing through profiles that's when your profile caught my eyes and I decided to show my interest contacting you out of the most profiles , Anyway I belief if there's no reason, so there's no certainty for deeds so by this I belief there's reason for everything.

I'm a German born by birth; I grew up and spent most of my life in Netherlands , before I finally moved down to the USA . I have been staying in California, for over 20 years before my wife died of cancer, I own a home here in CA, I am a mechanical engineer, I am into Gas Turbine installations and maintenance, I have been in charge of my own business for the past 15 years, after serving GE and Rolls Royce as the field services Engineer, it was a service time well spent, I do travel a lot, going from one site to another, nice experience and opportunity to meet people. I am currently out of the country; I am presently in Scotland. I should be back to the state in less than 3month, I have been on this project since last year and I hope this won't stop us from communicating before we get to meet each other in person. I have been a widow for past 5 years; I am seriously looking for the right one, who's ready for true love and serious relationship.

February 8 at 3:42pm
Guten tag John,
That's about the extent of my German I am afraid! (I took it as a subject for a few months many, many years ago).
I have many questions I wish to ask you as I am still trying to get my head around all of this. I find it incredible that you searched through so many profiles and mine stood out. I keep expecting to receive an email telling me that you are not real and that this is a fraud.
I am a very honest person but I am also very cautious as past experiences have taught me to be so. I wish it was not the case though.
I'd like to say also that I am sorry for your loss of your wife and a mother for your son Tyler.
So, you are in Scotland. Do you like it there? It will be colder than CA I am sure!

John Williams February 8 at 3:50pm Report
Am really sorry about your past. if you care to chart i think it will be nice. by that way we can know more about each other. here is my id [email protected].


The header I got from one email he sent to me is:

Delivered-To: Received: by 10.42.179.72 with SMTP id bp8cs175512icb;
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:58:24 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.42.154.199 with SMTP id r7mr1504330icw.407.1298271503839;
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:58:23 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from nm18-vm0.bullet.mail.ne1.yahoo.com (nm18-vm0.bullet.mail.ne1.yahoo.com [98.138.91.37])
by mx.google.com with SMTP id jv9si13188169icb.45.2011.02.20.22.58.23;
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:58:23 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of [email protected] designates 98.138.91.37 as permitted sender) client-ip=98.138.91.37;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of [email protected] designates 98.138.91.37 as permitted sender) [email protected]; dkim=pass (test mode) [email protected]
Received: from [98.138.90.54] by nm18.bullet.mail.ne1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 21 Feb 2011 06:58:22 -0000
Received: from [98.138.89.164] by tm7.bullet.mail.ne1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 21 Feb 2011 06:58:22 -0000
Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp1020.mail.ne1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 21 Feb 2011 06:58:22 -0000
X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3
X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: [email protected]
Received: (qmail 88938 invoked by uid 60001); 21 Feb 2011 06:58:22 -0000
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1298271502; bh=hyp0Y55svCYIEbR6XOIEIKmT3ELHtX1sqlHTxzoMleg=; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=3I66e9ihxDBpOVC0/Mw3UJhFl0peMnJ1nhNWiECrp1xrD8o8mIK40BT1uw2XCuaAG3yTEnFrm/fuHVLCbg746mINfN3xxXkzp2m41l6jPoiPzvWuJHj9YAIVFKeZJ9MXuXMpVO3c8FulZK/ttXGKn7MS/JKgLyRE3+raSRcE1B4=
DomainKey-Signature:a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws;
s=s1024; d=yahoo.com;
h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type;
b=2gpm361Jwu7QaNexyO4bjW598VexX3nOc7LAtQcYCCqDTh/P7efML6V6uKwC4oo5yKvAeW/jeTUSMJNkbSFy14xKA5r+pJDN0CkwHuKtPGpKDoOIgONuHZkgWSR2zlNpeK1PGB+EVarxpyGw15CYsBkjc3dw3fJiqYAIdtshJSw=;
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
X-YMail-OSG: .UT3XP4VM1lMlikQUed_vaQDme6mPPAcff52qwaMQVsn759
TLDjZaH9suBBfE.g6uHInA5VNKmMIlda6T41ZiFS1EN3LSIoOXaLNQ7P_8pj
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SdUN__XXqMfzhainHOtrdSUmf.XRijwVfcba0cw--
Received: from [41.155.58.26] by web120204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:58:22 PST
X-Mailer: YahooMailClassic/11.4.20 YahooMailWebService/0.8.109.292656
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:58:22 -0800 (PST)
From: John Williams <[email protected]>
Subject: Re:
To: In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Hi feljoa
I'm glad you came here.

Unfortunately this is a scam and he will ask for money eventually.
Notice in his contact that he doesn't call you by name. This is because he is using a prepared script and in contact with more than just you. He then cuts and pastes everybody to make his life easier.

The proof that you need of this person being a liar is his IP address. Taken from the header you supplied.
As you can see from the information below, he's from Nigeria. A long way from Scotland!

Header Analysis Quick Report<br>Originating IP: 41.155.58.26<br>Originating ISP: Starcomms Limited<br> City: Lagos<br>Country of Origin: Nigeria<br>* For a complete report on this email header goto ipTRACKERonline

I know you wanted him to be real but in your heart you had your doubts.
Thankfully you reacted to your instincts and came here.

Please ignore this person even though he may be persistent.

Thank you for your quick reply.
I feel ill. I feel for the people who's identity he has used and I feel for others he may be scamming. I just feel sick that I got taken in like this.
I sent him a photo of me (just an everyday photo with a snow coat on) which makes me REALLY nervous. You don't tihnk it will end up on other scammer sites?
Thanks again

I don't think so. Some scammers do claim to be women, but if you look round this site, you'll see that they use photos stolen from modelling sites.

tHello everybody my name is Madina i want to share with you maybe its help somebody this is firs letter from Garry Gilsenan he is a scam

Hello My Friend

GOOD DAY !!!

My name is Sgt. Gerry Gilsenan, I am a war veteran with the United Nations troop in Afghanistan, on war against terrorism. I served in the 1st Armoured Division in Kabul. Based on the United States legislative and executive decision for withdrawing troops from Iraq, I have been redeployed to come and work in Kabul on the platform of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Our mission is to help beef up terrorist targeted states, mostly the United States and the European Union on the war against terrorism.

On the other hand, I want to inform you that I and my partner (Trooper James Anthony Leverett) have the sum of $16.2million USD, which we got from crude oil deal in Iraq before he was killed by an explosion while on vehicle patrol. Due to this incident, I want you to receive this fund on my behalf as far as I can be assured that my share will be safe in your care until I complete my service here and come over to meet with you. Since we are working here on Official capacity I cannot keep this funds hence my contacting you.

I guarantee and ensure risk free of this deal, I want you to know that we have successfully moved this fund out to Europe with the help of a Red Cross agent and it was deposited with a bank which the deposit slips has been forwarded to me.

I will personally authorize the bank to transfer this fund to you upon the declaration of your assistance. I just need your acceptance and all is done. Since the death of my partner, my life is not guaranteed here anymore, so I have decided to share this fund with reliable and trusted person than the funds lodging in the bank for no interest.

I want you to tell me how much you will take from this money for the assistance you will give to me. One passionate appeal I will make to you is not to discuss this matter with anybody, should you have reasons to reject this offer, please and please destroy this message as any leakage of this information will be too bad for us soldier's here in Afghanistan. I do not know how long we will remain here, and I have been shot, wounded and survived so many suicide bomb attacks by the grace of God, this and other reasons I will mention later has prompted me to reach out for help, I honestly want this matter to be resolved immediately, please contact me as soon as possible with my e-mail address which is my only way of communication. [email protected] or [email protected]

Regards,

Sgt. Gerry Gilsenan.

After that sent to him this hello!

i dont understand anything! better if you ask about it another friends ok? !


2 letter was this

Hello ,

Got your message and I thank you for considering your assistance to enable us realize the benefit of this opportunity. And I am assuring you that all agreement towards the realization of this transaction would be strictly adhered to as stated in my earlier mail to you. I cannot use my military email for a deal like this . I hope you understand.

I quite understand the fact that we have not met before but I strongly believe that all relies on trust. Like I said earlier, my worried and concern is for you to keep the top secret of this deal, and please do NOT betray me at the successful end okay, if you really stick to your word and take care of everything and I will reward you handsomely .

So before we proceed, I will like you to provide with me your information to know you better. As soon as I receive your information I shall write the authorization fund letter in your name, give you the contact details of the Bank and I will also issue you deposit slip that will enable them release the funds to you. Send me your information as stated below:

Your Full Name:
Your Contact Address:
Your Mobile Number:
Your Date of Birth /Age:
Your Occupation:
Your Country of Origin:
Your Scan Copy Of Your ID:

Meanwhile I want to let you know that we need commitment from all sides to make this transaction succeed, as well confidentiality. Please also note that I cannot call you or receive calls from you due to the way things are here .

I assure you that this deal is 100% legal; just give me your co-operation and trust . And because of my military engagement here we must keep all communication between us very confidential as we are not allowed to handle cash while on combat mission abroad, this is to avoid us taking advantage of citizen of the country of mission, and any disobedience on this directives amounts to court marshal and imprisonment, therefore I want you to handle this transaction with sincerity and honesty.

I will be the one to call you when it is absolutely necessary.You cannot call me as we use the general phone here in the base.I hope you understand this .

I really understand what it takes to accumulate such huge amount of funds under your care, for this reason, I am willing to offer you 50% of the total fund but please make sure that my share is well secured until I complete my service here and come over to meet with you.

Thanking you and God Bless . I will wait to hear from you soon.

Sgt. Gerry Gilsenan.

Welcome to the site Madyanya,

This is a typical scam format that we see all the time, you will notice that he did not read your email to him, and just sent the 2nd part of his script.

Please do not have any more contact, ignore his emails, and he will leave you alone.