So, I hate to disappoint everyone in me but I recently fell for a huge scam like the stupidest idiot every existed
I'm even so ashamed to talk to anybody about it but I feel like I have to let it out...
So, I made a friend online, and we've been chatting for a long time, I thought she was a very nice a genuine person... She introduced herself as Mary, a fashion designer from UK who's also a resident in Abu Dhabi ( the city where I live ) and she explained that she's in a business trip in Ghana and will be returning soon, and she shared a pdf of her flight schedule and we agreed that I'll pick her up when she arrives... Everything in her story seemed so genuine to me, and they also wrote the story in a way that's so dramatic in order to abuse my empathy, for example she said that both of her parents died in a car accident and that non of her relatives where there for her and now she's talking care of her younger brother and her grandmother etc...
I believed every word she said without even thinking twice...
And then the day before the supposed flight she sent me this
Explaining that her UAE bank account got forzen and she couldn't withdraw money to pay for the hotel... She asked me to lend her money through Western Union so she can pay for the hotel and return... for some reason, I found the story convincing, and also she asked me to send the money to the name "Mary Quayson" as she introduced herself since day one, and she was able to collect the money with that name, she kinda game me some reassurance that she's a genuine person...
But that was a relatively small amount of money, the story didn't stop there, the next day she came up with another story... Only an hour before the departure of her flight, she messaged me that they stopped her in the airport and she's in big trouble and have to pay a huge overstay fine... And she shares with me the contacts of someone who claimed to be an immigration officer and asked me to talk to him...
So basically, she came up with one story after another, every time I had to lend her more and more in order for her to "return safely" and it wes too late until I started to think about the fact that we've never met or even had a video call, and then when I started to pay attention to the details in every screenshot and I realized that everything was fake and I fall for a very experienced Ghanian scamming agency and my money will never be back...
And I tried everything, went to the police station, and the Criminal Investigation Department here, they didn't even try to do anything about it with the 2 excuses: 1- I sent the money voluntarily anyway 2- The criminals are in another country and they cannot do anything at this point.
Yes, I know, it's all my fault, I hate myself so much
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@SW-User All the catfish that I've experienced were pretty bad. They way they spoke was a give away. They always say they are from the US or Canada but are currently in like Dubai, or Africa somewhere at the moment.
SW-User
@JimboSaturn The tricky part is that ot didn't involve any money until we already got to know each other well, or that's what I thought :(
@JimboSaturn [quote] They always say they are from the US or Canada but are currently in like Dubai, or Africa somewhere at the moment.[/quote]
The reason they do not say they are from Africa, Dubai, Oogala-Boogala or wherever is because even they know that is where most of the scammers originate.
Not that the US nor CA are devoid of crooks but you don't hear about the "Canadian Prince" in scam stories.
[quote]Their parents always die in car accidents.[/quote] Maybe that is the karma they face for being big time scammers. Okay bad joke. 😬
@CestManan LOL, I like to play along with them, it's really actually very funny. They are so POOR most of the time. I got one to leave me a voice message and was clearly African when her picture was of a blonde lol
@JimboSaturn Thing is though, if these types of scams were new (but even then...) maybe they would be hard to detect but today people JOKE about it.
Wouldn't everybody kind of have this sense telling them, "Okay this is bull". Like the frequent emails I get where they want me to verify my address for some UPS package that I didn't order. Or how I won some lottery.
Plus, since the scammer typically needs time to tell their story and all, wouldn't the victim have time to think things over? It is not like a thief in the night where your sh*t is gone before you know it.
