Is my mother getting scammed?

Hello,

I'll explain my story, because I need some help.

My mother, 54, divorced, and a bit lonely, had signed up to one of these connection sites, a UK one, and on July 20th she was contacted by a man called "Andrew Patterson" and he wanted to talk to her. The next thing I know they're talking on MSN all the time, and I ask whats going on as it started to seem odd her talking to him alot online.

I found out, that apparently, he's a Doctor in the US army (he says he's half US and half UK) serving in Iraq. I just had a feeling from the start that something was off. So i've kept my eye on things.

A couple of weeks ago, I read a few emails he and my mother had been sending (nosey, but I was still curious) and found he had been sending love poems, and i thought hold on, these are off the net, so i searched and all of them were found off the net. And by this point i realised she had fallen for this guy, started saying she thinks she loves him, and he was saying he loves her and wants to marry her, etc, very full on.

So i told her my concerns, but she doesn't have any concerns. He claims he has a 15 year old son and has sent a photo. A strange thing is that there is only 1 photo of both him and his son. None of them together and only one each.

Now i find out he's asked my mother to sign a form that looks very strangley fake, so that he can get 5 weeks leave from the army. It looks very informal and has an address on that doesn't even exist. She's signed this and sent it to a strange looking email: [email protected].

I also know he knows her phone number, as he texts her.. (never rings) and he knows her address because he asked if he could look on google maps.

So i noticed he now has alot of info from my mother. Her name, address, age, signature, profession, photo, etc.

Now tonight i started to become really worried when i thought about tracking his IP address from the emails he's been sending (im a computer scientist so i know a few tricks) and i found they all came from... Nigeria.

Alarm bells are ringing.
I decided to be very nosey and read her msn chat logs, and i found alot of worrying things. Alot of full on 'i love you sweetheart' 'i love you babe' 'i will marry you my love' and my mother has sucked in to this completely, and only after 2 months and never meeting the guy or speaking to him in person.

Which leads me to how i found this site. He send alot of poems in MSN too, so i searched on, and it lead to this site. The poem was:

Please know that my love and I are inseparable and I would want it no other way and if time could express my love for you then it's forever and a day. I can't wait to be with you, see your smile, look in your eyes, feel your sweet touch, hear your perfect words and kiss your perfect lips.

There are tens and tens of poems like this. All can be found off the net.

So I'll attach an image of his photo, and this fake looking document my mother signed. And hope you can alert me if this is a clear scam and if there is some way i can stop my mum fooling for this. p.s. sorry for the long post! just alot of stuff i needed to explain!




(scaled to fit)

This guys sounds exactly like the one my mom was talking to, military major in Iraq, the poems, the I love you's, everything. i looked up the information about the Nigerian scams and had her read it to see if any of it sounded familiar. I also showed her this website. i hope yours realizes what she is getting into before it is too late, my mom did after I got involved too. "Michael Wilton" was her scammer, a very scary guy who seems to be obsessed with her. Please read my posts, the conversations I found and the poems are in there and I want to know of they are close to the ones you found. Good luck, hope all goes well.

I just found out that my mom was to sign a form just like this one, so he could send her some money. he wanted all kinds of information, and gave us some odd looking email addresses to talk to a "diplomat." Do you know how I can trace these addresses? Could you PM me and tell me how you did it? I would love to see if these are from Nigeria as well, from what I have read of the conversations from them it all sounds very familiar.

Hey,
thanks for the reply, i checked your topic out and you're right it sounds very very similar.

the story about having a son, he used to have a wife, he is very rich, wants to leave iraq, etc, it's really similar.

i even would say the guy your mom was talking to, had better grammer than this guy.

he's always asking what my mom is up to, but never says what he's doing, and if he ever gets asked, a few mins later he claims he has had a phone call or they need him urgently

i think tomorrow i will get my mom to phone this guy, off another phone. and say dont carry on talking to him untill you have spoken to him in person. and we'll see what happens.

i have a feeling he wont answer or will answer, and it wont be the person he says he is...

You were right!! This guy is in West Africa, thanks so much for your help! I knew it and I'm so happy i was able to figure it out before my mom got too involved. i really hope your mom will listen to you and stay away from this guy she is talking to. Wow can't believe this kind of thing would ever happen to regular everyday people, but i guess that's who they look for! thanks again!

I'm glad i could help.

It just confirms it that bit more. this must be a scam.

It sounds like you already have an answer, at least in part, but I will tell you straight out (and feel free to show this to your mother)--it is 100% bog standard scam.

First of all, the entire progression is textbook scammer. All of these are standard scammer elements that are obvious even without seeing a single email.

-Single dad (96% of the time wife either died tragically or cheated on him with his best friend, boss, etc.
-Falls in love immediately
-love poems
-constantly calling her "babe" (allows him to reuse scripts without having to update with victim names)
-white man, world traveler, conveniently not in claimed home country.
-talk of marriage within an unnaturally short period (which will soon be followed by a desperate need for money, or a need for her to cash checks or money orders for him (which would be fake and leave her in a deep mess).

I'm sure if I saw the actual emails/chats I could point out a lot of the other standard pieces (such as past tragedies, African grammar mistakes, phone number will most likely be Nigerian or redirect (starts with 44-70, can be answered by a Nigerian cellphone) or free K7 number) also.

As far as this whole leave request goes: This form/signature claim makes absolutely no sense.
There is no such thing as a "beneficiary" who has to sign when leave from the military is applied for. The truth is, even if someone had to sign some kind of paperwork for him, it would probably be something that would be signed by a spouse or blood relative--the government does not tend to recognize girlfriend/boyfriend in any legal capacity. Chances are this is just being used to convince her he is really going on leave, and pave the way for when tragedy strikes or he doesn't quite have the money to get over to see her...As you noted, the address on the form does not exist.

The domain name usmilitaryadmin.com is another clear scam indicator. It is not in any way connected to the real US military. In fact, looking at its registration:

Registrar: NameSecure.com
Domain: USMILITARYADMIN.COM
Created on 06-25-2009
Expires on 06-25-2010

Registered less than 3 months ago, and only for a year? Not likely for any domain the US military would use. But it does look as if your scammer may have registered it to support his scams. It will be passed on to our site killers for research, and if your mother would be willing to forward any emails coming from that domain, it would help them greatly.

Here is a link to the real form 3065 (leave request). Looks quite a bit different, doesn't it?
http://www.unl.edu/nrotc/Nc3065.pdf

[AlanJones]

As Dotti says this is 100% scam.

There is one important point on the fake form -

3. ROUTINE USE(S): Beneficiary to the returning officer seeking leave request will be responsible for all financial charges.

There will of course be payments required and they will try and convince your mother that she is legally liable for them because she has signed the form.

They are probably not the same scammer.

You tend to find that one scammer devises a 'script' and others use it and adapt it with slightly different details. They do this because they often aren't familiar with life in the West and can't trust themselves to make up something brand new themselves that sounds plausible.

They will alter names and small details to make it harder to google search their scams, but it means that a lot of them follow the same basic lines.

Once someone's fallen for the lie it's hard to snap them out of it. It's like trying to wake someone up when they're dreaming and they want to go back to the dream. If you can prove without a doubt that one thing the scammer has said is a lie, and in this case the fake document is pretty indisputable, then the intended victim is more likely to pay attention.

A person who has committed themselves emotionally to a scam is going to be angry to learn they have been lied to, and more likely to listen to sense.

Hi guys,

I got him to call.

Its official, he's a scammer from nigeria.

His email is [email protected]

Where would you like me to forward the emails to, i'm happy to help you research this guy.


Thanks for your help, and obviously, my mum is a bit shaky. but it's better than what would have happened.

My mail address in PM.

Welcome Adam. I'm so glad you were able to help your mom, as unhappy and the truth will make her. Kudos to you. The Enchantress is one of our best in researching and profiling romance scammers, please do contact her. Thank you, lisa, for reaching out to another here.

Profile/report here;

http://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3673

Hey! I am very happy to hear that your mom was able to get out of it before she got in too deep. this site is great, and i hope we can help more people before they get hurt! I hope your mom is okay, mine was shaken up too but at least she didn't fall for the guy and we caught him before he asked for money.

It's not that all people are untrustworthy, it's just that you have to learn how to tell the bad people from the good, and then appreciate those that aren't out to scam you.

I'm not fishing for compliments for us, but the fact that you looked out for your Mom shows she should trust the person she knows rather than a stranger off the internet.