Carlisle Woman Targeted By Nigerian Scammer

[Wayne]

http://www.lex18.com/news/police-carlis ... an-scammer

Carlisle Police say a scam artist in Nigeria targeted a woman in town, and had she fallen for it and cashed the fake money orders, Leslie Archambeault would be out more than a $100,000.

They seem endless - rows of money orders spread out on the Carlisle Police Department floor.

"I have been in contact with different agencies that this is going on all around in the area," said Officer Mark Snedegar.

The scam is the same said Snedegar - asked to cash a money order, you keep some, but mail the rest to the scammer. Only the money order is bogus and you're out the cash you sent to scammer.

Except this time, Snedegar said he's never seen some 80 money orders sent to just one person.

"He definitely abused my trust," said Leslie, who, if she would have complied, would have lost $132,000.

"He posed as someone being nice and we became friends and he told me he loved me and he had a job that I could make $300 a month on," said Leslie.

Her relationship with the man started a year ago in a chat room. She said he's from Nigeria, and Thursday, he mailed her the brown-paper package, too suspicious-looking not to give police.

"If you don't know the person, don't even associate with them, especially when they start talking money or your social security number or your date of birth or anything like that," said Officer Snedegar.

Archambeault cut all ties with the scammer and limits her time online to doing school work. Officer Snedegar's work is with State Police and the Secret Service to try and crack this case.

Snedegar says real money orders or checks have a watermark. Fake ones don't and the Nigerian connection is also a tipoff that it's a scam.