Friday, August 12, 2005

A sucker is born

I'm at work the other day and I get an IM through my yahoo messenger. Normally I keep it invisible, but that day, I had it on with a message that I was at work. I get a hello from a young lady and before I answer I look at her profile. Profile says she is 28, living in Holland and the pic is an attractive black woman. So I answer. I'm not going to get into the entire conversation, suffice to say the conversation was chit chat about what, we like, what we do, where we live, etc.
Then the conversation got a little serious. She told me was going to visit a friend in Africa and she needed a cell phone. I said sure, give me the address (I wasn't going to send her a cell phone). Somewhere in the conversation, I gave her my address, but a fake last name. She was going to send me flower.
Fast forward a day. Sure enough, the next day when I go home from work, there were flowers waiting for me. I've read that these scammer send gifts like that using stolen credit cards and such.
I get a IM the next day and I thank her for the flowers. There is some small talk and them she starts telling me about the contract she is working on in Africa and the people she is working for are paying her in Money Orders. She wants to send me the money orders for me to cash them, keep a little and send the rest to her. Oh and can I send her some of my hard earned money so she can get by. Oh, and she tells me that she loves me..blah, blah..How can somebody love me after two conversations in cyber space? I'm non-committal, tell her I got bills to pay and I see what I can do. She tell me if I can to wire the money to her accountant. Sure..riight.
I Google the accountants name and sure enough, he's a crook, based out in Africa. I've been reading all about these scams. They send you a money order that's been doctored, you cash it at the bank and send the money back (keeping a little for yourself) and after about a week you get a nasty call from the bank telling you the money order was $90 not $900 and they want the difference.
I haven't gotten any money orders from this girl (if it is girl) yet and if I do, I most likely will turn them over to the police, FBI, or whoever has jurisdiction in international fraud. Oh, and I've been avoiding this girl like a plague whenever I see her online.