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It seems simple enough: Log in to your MySpace Internet account, browse through a few photos, a few blog entries, start a relationship over e-mail, fall in love, get married, live happily ever after.
But Waterford police have learned of at least two cases in which residents were scammed out of thousands of dollars — for love.
Detective Sgt. Michael Hurley said a 51-year-old woman, whose name was redacted by police from a police report to protect her identity, sent more than $13,000 overseas for what she thought were wedding and travel expenses for her upcoming marriage to a man she'd met online. The man — who said his name was Kenny — told her he lived in London and worked for a company called Japaul Oil, based in Nigeria.
According to the incident report, the woman began dating Kenny through Yahoo Instant Messenger and e-mail sometime last August after they met on MySpace. She told police they began talking about wedding plans in October.
“Kenny told (her) that all expenses related to her moving to London and them getting married would be paid for by his company,” according to the police report.
Kenny provided names and e-mail addresses for some of his “family” members, with whom she communicated by e-mail, in addition to a “wedding planner” and an individual named Smith Morris from whom she was meant to purchase an overseas travel insurance policy.
“They prey on your nerves, on your emotions,” Hurley said.
The woman told police that Kenny asked her to send thousands of dollars so that she would have a car when she arrived and that he would later reimburse her. She sold her own vehicle, she told police, to send $6,000 via Western Union toward the “down payment.” She later sent another $3,000, and when she tried to send another $2,800 to London at a later date, Western Union advised her that the “Fraud Alert” was high for London and she couldn't sent the money. When she told Kenny, he asked her to send it to Canada.
“Kenny never provided her with his phone number, date of birth or address,” said the report.
According to the report, the woman finally became suspicious when Kenny told her to send a laptop computer to a bank in Nigeria as a “gift” so that he could make the money in his bank account available to her more quickly. Finally, in December, when the woman began asking questions about why she had not been reimbursed, Kenny cut off all contact with her, according to the police report.
In another instance, Detective Ed DeLaura said he investigated a case in which a man was corresponding with a woman online — a beautiful, buxom blonde from West Africa, according to her e-mail. The two fell in love, and the woman asked him to deposit a check from her father in Texas — which she sent to him at a post office box in Quaker Hill. The deal, according to police, was that the man was supposed to deposit the money in his account and wire it to West Africa.
“It was to come here and visit,” DeLaura said.
The money — $9,600 — was stolen from a Texas account holder, who alerted his local police department, who in turn alerted Waterford police. Police said they simply waited for the man to come pick up the check, then explained what had happened.
“You've got tons of people out there trying to get this info,” said Deputy Chief Maximilian Thiel. “ ... You have to ask yourself the question, 'Why is this person suddenly interested in me?' ”
Police said they forward all such cases to the Criminal Investigation Services Postal Mail Fraud Division in Chicago, but noted that the chance of recovering money wired internationally to people using pseudonyms is pretty slim.
Cheryl Swyers, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Boston, said what she called “matrimonial” scams are now so common that they are part of an entire division in Chicago for what she called “confidence swindles.”
Swyers said most are only investigated after several victims appear to have been taken in by the same person or group of people. Often the dollar amounts, fake company names or forms the scammers use are similar. She said even the photos of beautiful women who men think they are dating are being reused.
In one case, she said, she had to tell a man who'd sent money overseas to his “girlfriend” that the woman he'd been corresponding with was most likely a Nigerian male.
She said often the scammers say they are from the United Kingdom, Ghana or Nigeria, and will attach their name to the other person's — often implicating the victims in the scams. In one case, a woman told the postal service she was unwittingly mailing out packages across the United States containing counterfeits of her own checks. She agreed to mail the sealed packages for her lover, but grew jealous when she saw women's names on them and opened one to see what was inside, she said.
“It's the lonely guy, the lonely girl who's just out there looking for love,” Swyers said.
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