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If it seems to good to be true, it probably is....

IP-Relay.com

Soon, however, the bloom was off the rose.  I learned to my disgust that IP relay had other devoted users - professional Internet scammers from Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and other African and European countries.  At times as much as 80 percent of our call volume was scammers using stolen credit cards to buy merchandise from American businesses.  And the horrible part was - we could do nothing about it.  

Literally millions of dollars in IP relay fraud occurs annually because the program’s mission is also it’s biggest loophole - complete transparency and utter confidentiality.  Under federal law IP relay must provide the same anonymity that a conventional telephone call provides.   A telephone line cannot speak and IP Relay operators serve as human telephone lines - prohibited by federal law (under penalty of prosecution) from becoming part of the conversation. They relay conversations with meticulous precision - word for word - adding nothing, omitting nothing.   They are prohibited from engaging in conversation with either of the parties.  So, although operators through experience can readily identify the scammers they can’t tell the receiving party they were being scammed because they are sworn to silence by the federal government.  What a perfect venue for scammers.  American tax money quite literally being spent protecting the anonymity of scammers.  Cool, huh?  

Americans are the targets of choice in most scams that come from Africa.  Stolen American credit cards are used to buy massive quantities of merchandise from American businesses using IP relay as the conduit.  These equal opportunity con men target any business (large or small) with merchandise to sell.  The merchandise is shipped to an intermediary in the U.S. who reships it to the scammers in their country of origin where it is sold on a thriving black market.  In many third world countries scams are a critical part of their economy.

These scams create many victims:
1)    The American taxpayer who pays for the scammers to use IP Relay,
2)    the people whose access to IP relay is compromised by high traffic generated by scammers,
3)    the merchants scammed out of their product (who pass on the cost of their losses in increased prices),
4)    the credit card companies (who pass on the cost of their losses to their clients in increased rates and fees)
5)    the owners of the cards who are faced with fighting identity theft and rebuilding their credit.  

There are other victims.  Merchants are wising up and refusing to make IP relay transactions that ship to foreign countries. To stay beneath the radar scammers need to appear American.  So, they use Internet communities to advertise for workers to accept delivery at their homes - or to find "lovers". If the hiring scam works the marks forward the loot to the scammers and may even be paid a little something for their efforts.  If the "I love you" scam works or if the "workers" fall in love (a key detail in these scams) marks will be persuaded to donate time, effort and funds to do the remailing in the belief it will be the key to their future happiness with their newfound love.  Although many - maybe even most - of the American "loved ones" these scumbags suck into their schemes are innocent victims, under the law they are accessories to fraud.  The damage doesn’t end there.  There’s personal impoverishment, emotional damage, regret, and perhaps most devastating - shame at not only being so cruelly deceived - but at never having been loved at all.

Scammers meet marks at community websites like this and "fall in love" at the first hint of response.  They can’t wait to come to America to meet and marry their new "lovers", but there’s always a problem and it always involves money.  They need some, they want the marks to provide it, and it’s never enough.  They need money for papers, transportation, bribes, hiding places.  Marks sell vehicles, empty  bank accounts, hock jewelry, take out loans - all without ever having seen their lovers face-to-face.  In almost all cases - they never will.

Fact is - their lovers may not even be the sex, age, or appearance they claim.  Depends on who they’re targeting what face they’ll wear.  Male victims are often shocked when they come to realize that their stunningly beautiful "girlfriend" who showered them with promises of hot sex and undying love is probably a Nigerian or Ghanan man working in a boiler room filled with laptop computers, lists of stolen credit card numbers, a few rickety tables and chairs and little else.  In fact, the pictures of attractive young men and women used as part of the lure are often pulled from European modeling websites.  

Scammers live in third word countries where poverty is endemic, and scamming is a way of life - a potent economic force that brings millions, even billions of dollars worth of funds and merchandise into their economy every year.  The laptop computer is the scammers "office" - the perfect tool for their trade.  They may work out of deserted buildings or Internet cafe’s - ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.  They don’t even need electricity if they’ve been lucky enough to have obtained a wireless laptop that can high-jack someone else’s signal.  In many instances there is little incentive for local police to enforce existing scam prevention laws.  When police do respond scammers simply disconnect their laptops, put them in their shoulder bags and walk out into the street where they are swallowed up in crowds of pedestrians - invisible in an instant.
    
We Americans see scamming for what it is - a crime.  In many African nations, however, working a successful scam is considered a badge of honor.   In Nigeria these scams are often referred to (in all their many guises) as 419 scams - a reference to the Nigerian anti-scamming statute.  There are so many scams and variations on scams that it would be impossible to list them all here.   They occur by mail, email, IP relay and on community websites.  Scammers use free email providers and may have multiple accounts going at any one time.  They join online communities and chat rooms where they troll for marks.  They have great disdain for their victims - believing Americans deserve to be fleeced of everything because they’re so "greedy."  Marks are called "mugu" a derogatory term.

Below are just a few Internet websites that explain the reality of African scams and how to avoid them.

AARP.org - Nigerian Money Offer Scams 

The Nigerian Scam from Snopes (a website that investigates the truth or lack thereof of claims made online)

Internet Love Scams - a website for those who have been conned 

Scam Artists Threatening IP Relay Services? (About.com)

Scammers snare thousands of new victims each year - choose their victims carefully - looking for lonely people who need human contact, emotional connection, love.  They press their advantage as soon as they see the first sign of acceptance.  They could approach someone one day and be "in love" with them the next.  They pluck at heart-strings, use flowery romantic language, coax their victims to believe in the fiction of love.  Once their quarry is hooked, they begin the con - initial requests for funds may be small but soon the stakes will go up.  An emergency of some kind.  A family member needs emergency surgery, another family member has been kidnapped, another family member needs money to make emergency repairs to a home or vehicle, the "lover" is being held somewhere against their will.  The stories are as varied as the person making them up.  Their hallmark is their patience.  They’ll work months for a few hundred dollars.  They’ll target lonely widows or widowers living on social security and be successful in getting them to cash in bonds, empty bank accounts, sell antiques to obtain the funds they "need".

"I love you" scams may continue long past the point of what onlookers would consider to be good sense - for months - even years.   Victims may choose to ignore that niggling little voice telling them something isn’t quite right.  By the time victims are willing to acknowledge they’ve been scammed they may have spent thousands of dollars, estranged themselves from family and friends - lost everything.  Once the scammer senses there isn’t anything more to be squeezed from their mark they move on to another but they’ll maintain contact - just in case. 

And just in case what I had to say didn’t convince you, here’s a link to an AARP article that has a lot to say about scams.

 

Scam Alert:  She lost her heart and $2,700

 

And this also from AARP -  A fool in love

 

And one last thing - This time from MS NBC - an expose written in 2004

 

And remember - just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.  LOL

 

Watch your backs my AARP friends.  I’d hate to see any one of you get hurt by befriending a person who is not what they appear to be.