MEETING THAT SPECIAL SOMEONE WHO IS A FORMER MODEL, LIVES IN THE US, OWNS THEIR OWN BUSINESS, AND TRAVELS AROUND THE WORLD… WOW!

I have, through this Website, discovered that I'm not alone in my problem of Internet dating scams. I have been a member of a prominent Internet dating site for some time but had never been contacted by any individuals remotely similar to this one before. At the end of March this year, I was contacted by a person representing themselves as Sara from Friendswood, TX using the handle of sunlovessweetness. Since Friendswood is only a three hour drive from where I live, I thought this might be someone worth getting to know. Especially as I travel to Houston and Galveston on a regular basis. After brief exchange of e-mails, along with pictures, she said she was now on a business trip to Nigeria. She supposedly was self employed, a former model, who dealt at the wholesale level of fabric business. She bought fabric in Africa for resale in North American markets.

One week into a three week trip, she discovered that the money orders she had brought with her to pay for the fabrics could not be cashed or accepted by the vendor. On top of that, her credit cards were maxed and she still had hotel and food bills to pay. Would I be able to help her? Naively, I agreed to advance her $400.00 to cover her expenses while she figured out how to handle this "situation". We agreed that when she flew home she would fly to my hometown and then spend the weekend together at the beach in Galveston.

The following week, she came up with the following solution: a Canadian dealer she sold fabrics to notified her they were sending a payment of $7,500. She would have them send $4,000 to me and would I forward $3600 to her and keep $400 as reimbursement of the previous loan? Sure, I thought. She is just an innocent person caught in an unfortunate circumstance. About two weeks later, the money orders arrived. Well, to make a long story short, $4,000 in money orders arrived. I cashed them and had to send three wires totaling $3,600 to Nigeria.

The next day, I found out that two were rejected as suspicious by the wire agent. The same day, I received a call from my bank saying the money orders were fraudulent. Fortunately, I was able to recover all but $100 of the wires. Talk about being lucky that I didn't have to eat four grand! I decided to give her the chance to explain herself. She said that her ex was "out to get her" and raged about how the Canadian vendor and the shipping company screwed her over. I made a phony offer to buy a ticket in the states for her to return home, but she insisted that I send money so she could use a local friend's agent. After that exchange, I cut off all communication and reported this to the IC3 unit of the FBI. Just goes to show how hard criminals will play on your generosity.

Watch out for: naowill29@yahoo.com!!!

Jim, TX