Benefit from our years of experience with scammers.
Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:39 am
Taken from "The Scam Survivors' Handbook"
Not a chance. Really, not a single chance. We can't say this enough. All he's doing is lying to you in order for you to remove his details and prevent others from seeing it. The only way he'd ever send your money back is if he gets another person to send it to you as part of his scam on them. The moment they realise they've been scammed, they have one person's details to take to the authorities. That's right, all he would do is implicate you in the scam of someone else. Once your money has been sent, then all you can do is accept the fact it's gone and you'll never see it again. Arrests are way too rare and scammers don't suddenly turn over a new leaf and send money back to people. The other stories you need to look out for as well are "Well I WAS trying to scam you originally, but after a while I genuinely fell in love with you and want to be with you" or "I'm only doing this to try to survive in this terrible country. If I didn't do this then I'd starve". Let's look at this with objective eyes. He's paying to spend hours in an internet cafe, which is far from cheap, likely has a phone so he can talk to you and he claims he's starving. Really, do you believe that? Once you realise he's a scammer, treat everything he's ever said to you and ever will say to you as lies solely for the purpose of trying to part you from your money.
Thu Apr 19, 2012 8:03 pm
scammers don't suddenly turn over a new leaf and send money back to people.
And ... even if hell froze over and pigs DID start to fly ... scammers are stupid with money. Chances are that the couple thousand dollars they receive from a victim on Friday afternoon are gone by Saturday morning. They enjoy pretending to be rich and flaunting their money at the club, buying women, pretend prestige and bling.
A person I know who lives in Ghana tells me that there are hundreds - if not thousands - of homeless scammers who had more money in their jeans last week than any Ghanaian could ever hope to see in a lifetime. Personally I find this to be a little payback. They thought your money would change their lives for the better. They were wrong. Now they may have to do things they really hate to do in order to afford the next few hours in the internet cafe. Hopefully that is when they meet Lola.
