SENDING A WELL DESERVED GIFT…

I am a middle aged man who posted a personal add on a trusted singles web site. I was contacted by a beautiful 27 yr. old woman named "Clara" who "supposedly" lived in Essex, England. "She" worked and lived with her "uncle" who owned a textile business and traveled a lot. She said her mother was from Brazil. After E-mailing for a couple weeks, she said she loved me and that we should meet.

We decided that she should come and stay with me for a month. I was up front and said that I could not afford to pay her ticket. She said that was O.K. and that maybe her uncle could help us out. What did I have to lose? A beautiful woman was going to pay her own way here to be with me! She even called me on the phone. But her voice was very low and almost a whisper, not unlike a man who is trying to sound like a woman. The next day her uncle called me. He asked if I could pay for half of the plane fare, which was around $500. At this point alarms started to go off. There was no doubt that it was a scam when he asked me to send the cash to Nigeria! I played along, telling him that I could sell an old car that I had for the cash and maybe pay the full amount. It was at this point that I called the FBI and reported it on ic3.

I kept putting them off, having them spend money trying to reach my by phone. They must have made a dozen calls and left messages. "Clara" was trying to rush things by claiming she was so anxious to be with me. She wanted me to wire the money. I told her that they charge too much to send it and that I was sending it by mail because I wanted to send her something special. She was very upset that I hadn't wired it like she told me, but she pretended to get over it. I told her that I was sending a travel gift to her. She kept saying that it wasn't necessary (because the U.K. address was fake and it would come back to me). I chose to send the "gift" and the "money" to the real address in Nigeria. I wrote that "I wished that I could be there to see the look on her face when she received the gift". I told her that "she could wear it, keep it in her purse, or even eat it if she wanted".

I have a cat. I have to dispose of cat droppings somehow, so what better way than to mail them to someone so deserving? But I didn't want them to go completely empty-handed, so I also included a fake (obviously) million dollar bill. The cat cookies were placed in a nice box that said "fine jewelry" on the outside. They were nestled on fine white spongy cloth. I placed the million dollar bill under the cloth and put a note on the outside telling where the "money" was.

In the end, it was they who spent money on phone calls and I wasn't out a cent. I was actually having fun with it after the initial shock and dissappointment. I was more fortunate than other people, who's stories I have read. I think that many people are taken by these scum because they want to believe that someone so beautiful loves them. In my case, I think that "Clara" is probably a fat, hairy old man.

Bob, MN