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"WHAT ARE THE WARNING SIGNS I SHOULD BE LOOKING OUT FOR?"

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"WHAT ARE THE WARNING SIGNS I SHOULD BE LOOKING OUT FOR?

Unread postby Wayne » Mon Apr 30, 2012 11:15 am

Taken from "The Scam Survivors' Handbook"

Here we'll cover some of the most common warning signs that you may be dealing with a scammer. The obvious one is that that they ask for money for whatever reason. It's often easy to spot them well before this stage by looking out for any of the following.

Did they contact you and immediately give you their email address so they can speak to you off the site?
Is their account no longer on the site? They claim to have removed it because they found true love with you and don't need it anymore, but the truth is that the site closed their account down for mass mailing.
Do they have their first and last names mixed, such as Smith Michael? Scammers often mix up first and last names.
Do they misspell their name, Marry instead of Mary, Scoot instead of Scott and so on?
Do they say "Am XXXXXX by name", "Am the only child of my parents" or "Am an engineer by profession"? Using "Am" instead of "I am" is a typically West African way of speaking. A huge warning sign if they use photos of Caucasians.
Do they "BUZZ" or "DING" you constantly when you talk in instant message?
Are they vague about the place they claim to live at? Can they tell you about the place with any kind of detail and without pauses that give them time to search for answers?
Do they give an occupation as part of their name, such as Engineer Davies Fred?
Do they ask you to appear on webcam, but come up with excuses why they can't appear on webcam. If they admit from the start to being a West African male then you can ignore this.
Do they claim to be from the UK/USA/Germany etc. but "currently in Africa"? This will be to explain away why they need money sent to Africa.
Does their accent sound like the nationality they claim to be? Many will pretend to have a parent from Nigeria and one from another country to try to cover this.
Do they mention a refugee camp in Senegal? Google phrases from their emails and you'll see they use very similar scripts a lot. There's one line that talks about how the weather is "a little cold" in one of the scripts that we see a lot.
Does it ever seem like you're not talking to just one person? Scammers often work in groups and you may be talking to 3 or 4 different people all claiming to be the same person. Maybe you notice they forget something you told them yesterday or seem to write differently from one day to the next.
Do they give you a UK number that starts with 070 or an American number that starts with 206? Both are internet "follow me" numbers that can redirect to anywhere in the world.
Do any phrases from their emails show up on search engines? They often use the same scripted messages to dozens, maybe hundreds of victims, plus scammers will steal each other's "format". They also steal poems from poetry sites and pretend they wrote it.
Check the IP address in their emails to see if they show the location they claim to be at, if they're listed as being used with scams or if they're listed as proxies.

Check both Google image search and Tineye to see if their photos are listed as being used by scammers.

If they ask for money, do they ask for you to send it via Western Union or Money Gram, or to have your bank details so they can send you money?
Do they mention basic travel allowance? This is a common trick used by scammers. BTA doesn't exist anymore, and when it did, it wasn't in the form the scammers claim.[/quote]
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Wayne
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