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I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

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Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#211

Post by yesbabyyes »

logicallee wrote: post #206
yesbabyyes wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, thanks. Perhaps I might, not right now though. I'm not very worried about the association, these things aren't that secret. I can tell you though that there is some more disturbing things going on in Ghana, with what they call Sakawa Boys. Sakawa is the name for online scams. Sakawa Boys are more into carding/skimming, but there is a way darker side to Sakawa which I don't think is happening with the 419ers. The…

read this. also fascinating. yes, write it up if you find a good medium (hint hint) to publish it on. question: you write in one point here "I'm interested in magic myself." You can't say that to this crowd if you said it I would stop reading your article for credibility reasons. So if you believe that any kind of magic or spells exist (that aren't tricks), then you should separate out this belief from your report, b…

I get what you mean, I've been frequenting HN for years so I know the crowd. Regarding magic, to me it's not so much about whether magic exists but what it is. Sure, it's trickery, originally I guess it is what we would call technology, only wider, technology and psychology perhaps. It's about making things come to happen.

I guess I could put it this way, Clarke's quote ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") is mistaken, any sufficiently advanced technology is magic, it's just that we are disillusioned.

I agree that it's more honest to be an illusionist than a witch doctor, but there are powerful magicians out there today, take Trump for instance, he's got the whole world enthralled.

I have just summoned tens of points to my karma account using nothing but my words, and I'm sure there are more to come.

It's not a big deal. Thanks for the advice though. ;)

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#212

Post by n72 »

My father's lost (from my estimates) about $350K from a christianmingle.com scam. It's wrecked his life, both financially. He went from living in a very nice apartment in a very nice part of Munich to living in a crappy place close to the slums of Calais. I'm estranged from him, so I haven't been able to talk him out of anything, but I doubt I could have anyway. My brother's snooped on his email and IMs for the last few years. These guys are really, really good at what they do.

I wonder at what point the services which let this happen become at least in part responsible. I contacted christianmingle.com and never got any response.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#213

Post by kahrkunne »

Johnny555 wrote: post #171
michael_h wrote: post #53

My mother in law is currently $150,000+ deep on a Facebook romance scam. I believe she's about to send him another $200k or so when her house is sold. Instead of living out her retirement in relative comfort, she will be scraping by on social security. Adult services can't help, because moonshot-level stupidity is not a mental disorder. She can't live with us, as she can no longer be trusted. She can't live on her ow…

When my elderly father was becoming careless with his money and giving it away to anyone he perceived to be in "need" ($1,000 or $10,000 at a time), we managed to convince him to give my brother power of attorney - ostensibly to make health care decisions, but in reality, the family moved his funds to a new account that dad didn't know about. This was likely illegal as it was done without his knowledge, but it proved…

This makes you more of a thief than the scammers, not only taking more money but also abusing the trust of your own father. Shame on you.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#214

Post by n72 »

FungalRaincloud wrote: post #113
michael_h wrote: post #53

My mother in law is currently $150,000+ deep on a Facebook romance scam. I believe she's about to send him another $200k or so when her house is sold. Instead of living out her retirement in relative comfort, she will be scraping by on social security. Adult services can't help, because moonshot-level stupidity is not a mental disorder. She can't live with us, as she can no longer be trusted. She can't live on her ow…

Reading through your comments, I think there's really only two resolutions to this situation. The first is that your mother in law will run out of funds, and die penniless. From what you say, that seems to be where this is heading. However, the only other resolution I can see is that she realizes on her own what is happening. You can lead her to the water, but you can't make her drink it. Realistically, I see that ha…

The meet solution doesn't always work. My father has met a woman whom his scammer claims to be twice. I'm quite sure it's a man behind the emails and this woman has been coerced into meeting him.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#215

Post by n72 »

kahrkunne wrote: post #213
Johnny555 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my elderly father was becoming careless with his money and giving it away to anyone he perceived to be in "need" ($1,000 or $10,000 at a time), we managed to convince him to give my brother power of attorney - ostensibly to make health care decisions, but in reality, the family moved his funds to a new account that dad didn't know about. This was likely illegal as it was done without his knowledge, but it proved…

This makes you more of a thief than the scammers, not only taking more money but also abusing the trust of your own father. Shame on you.

That's some marvelous empathy.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#216

Post by qb45 »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #191
michael_h wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, she met someone in person, which made the whole thing a little more scary. They went out to dinner, twice in a single week. From what I can gather, she met someone , but I doubt it was the same guy she's talking to over txt.

I've become acquainted with a few 419ers (Nigerian) during trips to Ghana (not the big boys, who are without fail sleaze bags, but the grunts, some of whom are very nice in person) and have done quite some research on how they and the scams work. When it comes to 419ers, they have a wide network across the world. They can get a guy to pick up cash or meet someone, today if need be. It might not even be a Nigerian, th…

> The trick is simple yet powerful - obviously the letters are made to funnel gullible people, but also greedy people with low morals. This would help the scammer justify it to himself.

I guess it also helps the client justify things to himself. There is money in people who feel guilty.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#217

Post by n72 »

whiddershins wrote: post #57
michael_h wrote: post #53

My mother in law is currently $150,000+ deep on a Facebook romance scam. I believe she's about to send him another $200k or so when her house is sold. Instead of living out her retirement in relative comfort, she will be scraping by on social security. Adult services can't help, because moonshot-level stupidity is not a mental disorder. She can't live with us, as she can no longer be trusted. She can't live on her ow…

I don't fully understand your situation, and it must be horrible and frustrating and painful, but there must be some way you can get through to her?

In my father's case (which sounds similar to micheal_h's), the problem is that the more you give away the more difficult it become to admit it's a scam since you have to admit both that the love you're looking for doesn't exist as well as the fact that you've been a complete idiot. It's a vicious cycle.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#218

Post by Johnny555 »

kahrkunne wrote: post #213
Johnny555 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my elderly father was becoming careless with his money and giving it away to anyone he perceived to be in "need" ($1,000 or $10,000 at a time), we managed to convince him to give my brother power of attorney - ostensibly to make health care decisions, but in reality, the family moved his funds to a new account that dad didn't know about. This was likely illegal as it was done without his knowledge, but it proved…

This makes you more of a thief than the scammers, not only taking more money but also abusing the trust of your own father. Shame on you.

Perhaps, but I like to think that we made the right decision by saving enough of his own money that he could live out his last years in the comfortable surroundings of home while receiving the one-on-one care he needed to remain (relatively) comfortable. We spent his money on him rather than strangers.

I'm comfortable with the decision and feel that we as a family made the right decision for him and it's hard to say it was "stealing" when the money was ultimately used for his own needs. It was a gamble, he could have passed away right after we protected his funds, then the money wouldn't have been spent on him, but that didn't happen.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#219

Post by n72 »

n72 wrote: post #212

My father's lost (from my estimates) about $350K from a christianmingle.com scam. It's wrecked his life, both financially. He went from living in a very nice apartment in a very nice part of Munich to living in a crappy place close to the slums of Calais. I'm estranged from him, so I haven't been able to talk him out of anything, but I doubt I could have anyway. My brother's snooped on his email and IMs for the last…

Also, to illustrate how hard it is to sway their minds, my brother impersonated a lonely person on Christian mingle and got the scammer to start working on him. He showed my father their correspondence and my father was somehow able to explain it away.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#220

Post by kahrkunne »

n72 wrote: post #215
kahrkunne wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes you more of a thief than the scammers, not only taking more money but also abusing the trust of your own father. Shame on you.

That's some marvelous empathy.

Why should I express empathy to the guy who ("probably") illegally stole his elderly father's money? If you can't get it done legally (by getting the person declared mentally unfit) then it's nothing more than theft. Deciding on your own that a person, your father none the less, shouldn't be allowed to control their own money, is indefensible. If you think this is so, there's well-defined legal procedures to do this. If for some reason those won't work for you, then it's gonna be hard to justify to me that you're doing the right thing.
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