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» Support Is Relative, Not Material |
As of the writing of this post, the ILS membership roster has reached the staggering number of 3,926. Some of the members are ILS staff, but the vast majority of the people hidden behind carefully selected nicknames that make up this list are victims of romance scams.
I think we all know what it means to be scammed. The vast emotional impact of being on the receiving end of a romance con is often hard to describe, but never difficult to feel once you have gone through it. As much as our respective situations may differ, we all have one thing in common - we seek support.
Support can mean many things. For some of us it means reading about the experiences of other people and comparing notes. It helps to know that we are not alone in this. For some others, it's active participation in a community like ILS, and sharing their thoughts with others who were affected by the same emotional and\or financial turmoil. Sometimes, support means just coming to the forum, posting about what happened to us, and just letting our thoughts pour out in hope that someone else will read them, understand and offer a kind word. We all have our reasons for being here.
Reading about the experiences of others, and sharing kindness with those affected by the same crime that has hurt us shows that we have a lot of compassion. One only needs to take a cursory look at the forums to see how much relief and support one member can provide to another by just typing a few paragraphs in response. For many ILS members, that is all they need. Member support, backed up by the research abilities of the ILS staff has already helped many people and has demonstrated that communities like ours can be successful, and can render aid to those in need.
Support is a relative word - it means something different to each and every one of us. Alas, there is one kind of support that one should never attempt to deliver to anyone just for asking - financial support.
Requests for financial support come in many varieties - some are direct, some thinly veiled, and yet others are so well disguised that even veteran members of anti-scam communities have difficulty in classifying them on sight.
Not all of those requests are outright scams, at least not from the onset. Someone who is in serious financial dire straits may resort to pleading their case to you in hopes that you send them some money. Such requests should always be answered with a polite but firm 'NO'. ILS Staff is always willing to provide victims in need with government and charity resources in their locality, and all such a victim needs to do is PM one of the Staff with a request for aid. You, as a member of ILS, have no obligation to either aid anyone financially, or to even continue to communicate with the person after you receive such a request from them. Should you find yourself on the receiving end of such a request, please let the ILS Staff know.
Some requests do not come through as requests for money at all. Someone may approach you and engage in PM and e-mail exchanges with you, describing their own financial disaster in great detail and seeking your advice on what to do. While such a request for advice may be legitimate, it may also be a veiled attempt at feeling you out and figuring out if you're willing to fork over some cash. If you are engaged in such an exchange and you begin to feel uncomfortable at any time, please let the ILS Staff know.
Yet other requests do not appear to be pleas for money at all. Someone that you're in contact with may one day offer you the 'opportunity of a lifetime' that will solve all your financial problems. Someone may invite you to join in an investment scheme, put your money down for a new business or offer you insurance services. Those are just a few examples, but they have a common theme - you are the one parting with your money. Should you receive such an offer from anyone here, please let the ILS Staff know.
It is the job of the ILS Staff to make sure that members of our community are safe while on premises. We do weed out scammers as soon as we see them, and we've been quite successful at eliminating quite a few of those lowlifes from the ILS members roster. However, we can only react to what we see. We are not privy to the messages you exchange with other users via the Private Messaging system and\or e-mail\messenger outside of ILS. If another member makes you uncomfortable in private, please do not hesitate to let
us know - we can and will take action against them if one is warranted.
And one final word for the scammers and opportunists who choose to join our community: Try your tricks here, and you will soon learn an interesting fact about Internet Love Scams - We Never Close.
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» Beware of Scammers claiming to be ILS Members! |
VERY IMPORTANT!
It has come to our attention that at least one scammer from Senegal is pretending to be part of this site in order to make him seem more credible to his victims.
Please note that Members of ILS will never approach anyone through dating sites using their membership of this forum as an introduction to a possible relationship.
If you are reading this because someone has directed you here to prove he or she is not up to no good, please be aware that you are dealing with a scammer and please let either a support member, moderator or administrator know about this.
You may also use our Contact Us form to report such occurrences.
Thank you.
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» Tragic End of a Romance Scam Victim |
In April 2006, a tragic event happened to a man who was looking for love. The lonely carpenter was lured to his death with the promise of a bright and happy future with his bride-to-be, but instead suffered an agonizing end to his promising life.
It is with deep sadness and sorrow that we continue to pay our respects to his family. Along with our condolences, we offer the strongest possible assurances, individually and collectively, to continue to highlight the evil and horror of these crimes to the public at large.
This is Raymond's legacy; may he Rest In Peace.
Quote:
October 31, 2006 Calif. Man Killed in Brazil in Ripoff
By KIM CURTIS and STAN LEHMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN BRUNO, Calif. (AP) - The lonely, divorced carpenter thought he was going to Brazil to make wedding plans.
Instead, he was drugged and held captive for six days at his fiancee's home while she and another man emptied his bank accounts, according to Brazilian authorities. Then they drove the 56-year-old victim to a vacant lot, where they strangled him with copper wire, doused his body with fuel, and set it on fire, investigators say.
Authorities found Raymond Merrill's charred body in April.
Now, the woman he believed was his betrothed is under arrest, along with a man suspected of helping to kill him.
"He would talk to me about ideal relationships and pure love," said Merrill's best friend, Bill Rauch. "With age doesn't necessarily come wisdom. He was used to doing things his way and, in the end, it did him in."
For months, his family knew nothing of his horrifying end. It was only after a bungled robbery in Brazil that investigators even learned of Merrill's fate.
Merrill met Regina Filomena Rachid last year through an online dating service. At the time, he was lonely and depressed, having been dumped by a Las Vegas woman for whom he had bought expensive gifts, according to Merrill's best friend.
Merrill and Rachid exchanged dozens of calls, e-mails and photographs, often enlisting Rachid's 18-year-old daughter as a translator. Rachid was 41, from an upper-middle-class family that was in the real estate business.
"I thought, `This is going a little fast,' but I didn't want to sound critical," said Merrill's sister, Marcia Sanchez Loebick.
The warning signs were obvious to Merrill's friend of nearly 30 years. Merrill gave Rachid $10,000 to start a skin care clinic and bought her a $20,000 sport utility vehicle. She complained it wasn't a fancier, more expensive model, Rauch said.
"This from a man who was tightfisted," Rauch said. "Ray and I would go out and I'd have to buy all the beers. All of a sudden, he's lavishing all these gifts and money on a relationship he's not even close to consummating.
"I said, `Ray, these are so many red flags. I can't believe you're pursuing this,'" Rauch said. "He would just slough it off. He'd say, `She's just a passionate and emotional Latina.' What do you say to a guy like that?"
Merrill visited Rachid twice in Sao Jose dos Campos, an industrial city about 60 miles from Sao Paulo. Both times he stayed a week longer than planned. Both times he notified Rauch, who then drove to Merrill's home in San Bruno to water the plants and collect the mail. On the third trip, Merrill again overstayed his return, but this time he didn't call Rauch to let him know.
Loebick, who lives in Cleveland, said she sent her brother repeated e-mails warning him that their 86-year-old father was dying, but got no response. She and Rauch's best friend called police in California to report him missing.
What happened to Merrill was more awful than either could have imagined.
Sometime after he arrived on March 21, Rachid and her real boyfriend, Nelson Siqueira Neves, drugged Merrill, kept him in a room in Rachid's house, and drained his bank accounts, stealing about $200,000 in all, according to Merrill's sister and Brazilian authorities.
Then, on April 1 - the day he was scheduled to return to California - they hired Evandro Celso Augusto Ribeiro for $5,600 to help kill him and set fire to the corpse, according to investigators. Authorities found the scorched remains but could not identify the victim, and buried the body in a pauper's grave.
But then Rachid - to raise money to pay off the hit man - took part in the holdup of a black-market money changer, and accidentally left her purse behind, investigators say.
The money changer went to police and turned over the purse, which contained Merrill's credit card. Hours later, Rachid showed up at the same police station to report her purse stolen. Police arrested her on the spot. The alleged hit man soon told authorities what happened to Merrill, investigators said.
Rachid and Ribeiro are in custody, charged with armed robbery followed by death.
Rachid's boyfriend was questioned by police in early October but was released under a Brazilian law that says no one can be arrested in the days immediately before and after an election, investigators said. Now he cannot be found.
"I feel a really terrible sense of loss," said Merrill's best friend. "You expect to lose your parents. But you don't expect one of your best friends to die."
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» New Scam Alert! |
It has come to our attention that certain Romance Scammers have adapted a new modus operandi in their dealings with victims.
Certain scammers offer to send computers and webcams to their victims, as gifts. Subsequently, they request that the victim poses nude in front of the webcam.
If you are involved with someone making such an offer to you right now,
Beware!
- The scammer is able to capture the webcam images. Consequently, nude photographs of you are being saved and stored by someone else.
- We are aware of situations where the scammer demanded payment from the victim in exchange for keeping the photos private.
- Even if the scammer is paid, that is certainly not the end of the problems. The scammer will come back with requests for more funds, threatening the victim with exposure of the photos on the internet.
If you have fallen victim to this type of scam, please make a report with IC3 ( http://www.ic3.gov ) and then contact either your local Law Enforcement or get in touch with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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» Welcome to ILS |
We created this website in order to make the internet world aware of people posing as lonely hearts in internet chatrooms and on dating websites.
The internet is awash with men posing as women and then taking large amounts of money from unwary men who fall for them, the same is also true of women. Many of the scammers originate from West Africa, most notably Nigeria, which is also notorious for the 419 scams littering the internet.
Please feel free to browse the site and forum; some areas of the forum can be viewed by guests, but others will require you to register a user account - this is free and it only takes about 30 seconds to register.
By posting your story on this site, you help other new people visiting for the first time to perhaps recognize that they are being scammed and not just falling in love with someone who has the world's worst luck - such as being stuck in a country with no money and having no check or money order cashing availability, and wondering if you can help them out.
Or sending them goods, that they cannot get them there as they are "working" in a different country.
Or perhaps a sick child that is with them.
The scammers will use any excuse to pull on your heart strings for only one reason; to get you to send them money.
These are the worst of all the scammers out there.
Not only do they empty your wallet, they also abuse your trust and break your heart.
They will use any means to part you from your hard earned cash. A "normal" person wanting YOU, not what you can give them would not be asking you for money or goods. If they do, you are being scammed. They would respect your privacy and not try to get your personal information.
Welcome to the site; the moderators and admins of this site are here to help you - please don't hesitate to ask us for help in navigating the forum.
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» Stats |
Members: 4,763
Threads: 273
Posts: 1,028
Top Poster: Witch (3,509)
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Internet Love Scams
