This section deals specifically with online romance scams. The images used by the scammers are stolen from innocent people, usually from their social media pages.
Tue May 28, 2019 11:14 pm
Hi, i wanted to post this here to warn as many people as possible about a scammer i met on Guardian soulmates. Thankfully i didnt lose any money but i didnt take note of some red flags:
The guy i met on Guardian Soulmates wanted to move onto WhatsApp quickly. Although i now know this is fairly typical for scammers it's also just normal for online dating these days.
He said he was in the military, on tour in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The English/ syntax didnt seem quite right. On other occasions it was excellent- different teams working?
He mentioned his parents had died but didn't say much about it.
He said he had a friend who was helping him set up a new business exporting logs from Malaysia to the Uk. My suspicions increased when he said he hadnt heard from his friend for a few days. When he did say he finally heard from him he said there had been a problem with some machinery and his friend needed money to get it fixed. He then mentioned he couldn't help because apparently the army dont have access to their bank account on tour. That sounded like rubbish to me. I ran a search on one of the images he sent me and it waa matched to a Daily Mail article about an ex soldier turned author - Geraint Jones. I then went to Geraint Jones' Instagram profile and found all the images from the scammers profile there as well as some he'd sent me on whatsapp. Ive since contacted Geraint to alert him. If you run a Google image search Instagram pictures won't be detected so this is a good one for scammers. Unfortunately for them they slipped up on that one pic and didnt realise it was featured in a news article.
All i have is the first name thid guy is using and the number.
I hope this helps someone.
Wed May 29, 2019 12:29 am
Can you post more information here?
Photographs, Phone numbers, & any other information will all help others from getting scammed.
Wed May 29, 2019 9:57 am
I haven't been able to post any images when I click on the image I tab, I just get this text come up below:
[Image][/Image]
Wed May 29, 2019 10:45 am
You need to upload an attachment. The Image button is for linking to an image elsewhere on the net.
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Wed May 29, 2019 11:14 am
Wed May 29, 2019 11:16 am
I should reiterate that all these picture are in fact of Geraint Jones - an author and ex soldier and he is aware that his images are being used in this way
Wed May 29, 2019 2:36 pm
+447539771600
Number billable as mobile
Country or destination United Kingdom
City or exchange location
Original network provider Everything Everywhere Limited
Tue Jul 02, 2019 5:49 pm
Exactly the same thing happened to me a man saying he was a soldier based in Kabul contacted me on guardian soulmates he said his membership was ending and he sent me his number to contact him on WhatsApp. He said he was 48 had two years left in the army and it was his last ever tour and that he lived in Bromley with his son and he was a widower. He was due home this week I also noticed that his English was a bit strange it was like predictive text had gone a bit mad he used some American terms. His English was poor for an officer so I was unsure. He said his name was Chad .
I was corresponding with him for six weeks he sent me photographs of himself and his son. I no longer have the photographs because I deleted them from WhatsApp by mistake. After six weeks he said about his log business. He had never told me this before but he thought that he had but he was probably trying to scam lots of people at the same time. Again he told me the same story he was feeling stressed his best friend Mark was in Malaysia. Last week he said he needed some money which rang alarm bells, and he couldn’t transfer any being in the army he asked me for £2000 I refused saying I can’t do that I followed that with ‘you sound like a scammer from Africa’ he typed LOL and said he hoped he hadn’t offended me we carried on chatting even though I was suspicious and then he asked me to buy him an iTunes card again I refused I said to him how could I get it to him then I asked him for a picture in khakis and he disappeared . I’ve reported this to to Soulmates I have also reported it to action fraud.
Tue Jul 02, 2019 6:00 pm
Thank you for the update, Baybay1.
Can you post here the messages you received from him? Be sure you remove your name or other personal details about yourself if mentioned before posting. If there are other pictures you received as the ones already reported here feel free to add them. Same about his email address and the phone number he was using.
If you want someone else posting for you, you can forward what you have to me - my email address is below.
Sat Jul 06, 2019 8:09 pm
I photographed many of the WhatsApp messages but I never had his email just the number which is how I found this site. As I’ve reported it to the website I trust they will have this info.
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