What to do if you are a victim of a scam

[firefly]

In case you are a victim of a scam or you were just targeted by a scammer, this is what you need to do. The following list does not cover blackmail scams/sextortion - for those cases the list can be found here: http://www.blackmailscams.com.

For all other types of scams, follow this advice:

To begin with, please read this very important topic:
Reporting a Scammer's Profile or Email Address? Don't! viewtopic.php?f=3&t=66948

1. Contact your bank and let them know you are a victim of a scam. Ask them to change your bank account details used with the scammer and ask also if is any way the bank can use to track the money and / or recover at least a part of the money sent.

2. Contact your local police with all the evidences you have regarding the scam and file a complaint. More info you have about the scammer - more chances for the Police to find a way to nail the scammer or at least some of his accomplices.

3. Stop all the contacts with the scammer and all the people you were presented by the scammer. Unfriend them - if they are friends with you in any of yours online profiles and block them. Block them in any chat platform (Yahoo, skype etc) used with them to communicate. Do not reply to their emails if they sent you some - just delete the emails without even open it. Block their phone numbers in your phone.

4. Keep in mind that everything used with a scammer is compromised. The details you shared will be reused by the same scammer or another one in another attempt to scam you. Best thing to do is to change everything: the phone number you are using, the email address, the bank account details. By doing this, you avoid letting yourself targeted again.

5. Avoid any conversation with any person contacting you using the same email address / phone number / skype you were using with your scammer and / or talking with you on the behalf of the scammer.

6. Do not fall for the recovery scam. In many cases of a person being scammed or experiencing a scam attempt, sooner or later someone will contact the victim, claiming to be an official person (police officer, lawyer or similar) with the promise he can recover to money lost and he can put the scammer in jail. If this person will not ask for a fee to do it, he will ask for a fee to send the money after he will tell to the victim he arrested the scammer. It is just another lie, to get more money from the victim.

7. By keeping the contact with the scammer, even if he know you have no money to sent, he will try to made you an accomplice in his scam - promising he will send to you the checks he receive for his work and you can cash the check in your bank account, withdraw a part of the money to re-send that part to him and keeping the rest until his debt to you is paid. In fact, those money are received from other victims and the scammer is just covering his tracks using the first victim. The first victim become a "mule" and he / she may end up in jail for money laundering, while the scammer will be free to scam others in the same way.

Post the relevant details about your scammer on the forum. If you are not sure what elements from your correspondence with the scammer are relevant, try to forward all the pictures, documents and emails received from the scammer(s) to an Admin - our email addresses are on the site under every post we made.

[SlapHappy]

When we say in the above post to stop all contact with the scammer, we mean immediately. If you do not, BAD THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN. Read on...


Chasing scammers on the internet, contacting them, and messing with them is the wrong thing for recent victims to do for many reasons.

1. It exposes a recent victim to more trouble, if they do it. And the person doing it can hurt a recent poster or unknown victim as well.
2. It educates the scammers to be better at their scam.
3. It stirs up scammers and makes them change their profiles, hurting present and future victims. It ruins the work of the victims and staff here to warn victims by making the scammers aware that their details might be posted.
4. They cannot be traced to exact location, as they use internet cafes and mobile phones to scam, and use all fake details. They use Western Union which is untraceable. Arrests are impossible unless you are sitting in the cafe next to them as the scam occurs, which you can forget about ever happening. Police may have ways that you do not, so keep away from scammer accounts!
5. It can disrupt any behind-the-scenes police or banking investigations of the scammer and his associates, making the collection of evidence and arrests more difficult.

Recent victims need to drop their thoughts of revenge, which we realize could be strong after they were scammed. They have no idea that they are exposing themselves and others to real dangers by trying to "get back" at their scammer, or other scammers.
Victims are not trained to deal with scammers safely and effectively in a way as to not only protect themselves, but other known and unknown victims of these criminals.
There is no real way for victims to mess with them to hurt them without endangering even more victims in the effort.

We ask you to think about the safely of the survivors here, the victims that the scammers have on the hook presently, and all future victims of the scammers. Read this post also: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=66948 Closing scammer accounts and profiles is wrong too, except for YouTube, Google+, or other video sites.

The Number One priority for recent victims is to recover from the scam in the real world.
All are hurt in many ways, and coping with the aftermath should be the first priority.
Chasing scammers right after they have not fully recovered in their own lives and have balance will only cause more hurt for them, and it always retards their recovery.

For Romance Victims, especially, but applies to all scams:

Looking for the innocent person in the pictures, to either warn him or thinking he will be so grateful he will fall in love with you is also the wrong thing to do.

This activity is usually caused by the victim's "brainwashing by the scammer," and the strong attachment to the pictures and copy/pasted words that the scammer sent to them. The pictures and "images of love" in their brains are not fully rejected and the victim is not recovered at this point. Looking for the innocent person in the pictures is not fueled by logic but by emotion. There are logical reasons why victims should not do it.

Number 1., 2., 3., and 5. above cover this activity as well. Victims are far more likely to contact scammers and not the real person, and all the bad results of that are the same as I explained above.

In almost all cases of victims actually finding and contacting the real person, their reaction is not what you would expect. They are hurt unnecessarily, you may be the 210th person to contact them, and they may be rude to you. They have their own lives to live, and some do not want any involvement in it at all, especially from any person unknown to them. You do not have the training or knowledge to explain the scam or what they can do to mitigate the problem they have, either. We do. Please do not look for nor contact the real person in the pictures, as it always creates hurt for them, for other victims, and for you, too. Leave that job to us, please.

[SlapHappy]

I thought I would re-post this blog entry by Wayne from the Scamsurvivors Blog. There are no quick-fixes to dealing with the aftermath of a scam. Survivors need to follow advice and make the effort for themselves. I hope you'll take this advice, as well.

WE CAN ONLY HELP PEOPLE IF THEY’RE WILLING TO HELP THEMSELVES.
http://www.scamsurvivors.com/blog/we-ca ... hemselves/

WE CAN ONLY HELP PEOPLE IF THEY’RE WILLING TO HELP THEMSELVES.

Over the past 2.5 years we’ve dealt with tens of thousands of cases of online fraud. One scam in particular we see more than any other, and that’s the blackmail scam/sextortion. Through those cases, we’ve come up with the best solution to deal with it. However, we still get people who ask for our help and then completely ignore it. Would you go to a mechanic to have your car fixed, have him tell you that you need a new part and then ignore him and decide that all it actually needs is for the windscreen washer fluid to be topped up? If your doctor told you that you needed a new heart valve, would you go off and just take a few antacids instead? We’re considered experts for a reason. Our advice is sound, and it works in almost 100% of cases provided people actually follow the advice. The kicker is, some then come back after being contacted again by the scammer asking for more advice, despite the fact they completely ignored it the first time. It’s not rocket science. Trust the people who know what they’re talking about.