Letter From a Reader -- Iraq Gold Scam

Hi,   I signed up for  a membership on "Match.com".  Big Mistake!  While on this site,
I  met an American solider by the name of Brian Gair.
He was a major,  and from  Maryland, so he said. He was stationed in Iraq.
When he would email me, his  word choice and sentence usage made me believe that he
was actually from some  country in Europe.  We viewed each other on a webcam.
He told me that he loved me.  Later, he told  me that he and some of his buddies had
found some hidden gold and money.  He  needed my help to get it out of the country.
All I had to do was to contact the  special UN courier that would be delivering
the package to me.    I needed to provide my name, address, etc and a copy of the
front page of my  passport to this man, who was Arabic.  Needless to say, I did not
do this.  I  told Brian that I felt uncomfortable doing this.  I also told him that
I wanted  to date someone closer to home.   This broke my heart.  I really liked him
and I miss chatting with him.  I know I  will never meet anyone with whom I felt so
comfortable with.  But, I could not  trust him.  Did I do the right thing?  I felt
in my heart that this was a scam  or something illegal that I did not want to get
involved with. was I right?


The answer to your question is YES, you did the right thing, and YES this was a
Major scam and a total lie. Try not to miss him or dwell on this, all of your
chatting was done as an effort to get you to like him and trust him, so he could
hurt you financially. No point in missing someone who had no real feelings for you. 

Lonnie Adams / Jimmy Adams - A Scammer in Illinois

Lonnie Adams aka Jimmy Adams

Lonnie Adams is not a Nigerian scammer. As a matter of fact, he is right here in the United States in Illinois.
Lonnie Adams got into trouble a while back with the law in Florida, and rather than go to court, he fled to Mexico. While in Mexico (the Cancun area) he decided to "set up shop". He would put up profiles on dating sites and wait for his victims to come to him. They did, unfortunately. He puts on his profiles that he is looking for a serious relationship, but what he really wants is for you to pay his bills. In Mexico Lonnie Adams did not hold down a job, his victims paid his way. He would start out romantic at first, tell the women to come visit him in Cancun Mexico, and little did they know the place they stayed at (allegedly his) was actually paid for by another woman. He would have one woman paying his rent, another paying for his food, etc. Lonnie Adams would then start his shtick of how he wanted to have a motorcycle business and would give tours to tourists. Did he have the money to start this business? No. That was for some helpless female to pay. He didn't want to work for his own money, he wanted to scam for someone elses. He had numerous women coming and going to Mexico to visit him at the same time. One would leave Mexico and another victim would be on their way to see him. He never told them about each other, and gave them the impression that is was just the two of them. He would ask them for money for his rent, utilities, food, all while going to "meetings" (yeah right) and trying to get financing for his business (yeah right) from investors. He is not the best of con artists, because it seems he cannot behave himself and actually treat someone nice for more that 24 hours. When Lonnie Adams would get money from women, if it was not enough, he actually had the nerve to yell at them for not sending him more. He would tell these women they should quit their jobs, sell their houses, and move to Mexico to live with him. He wanted their money, not them, and had no intention of living with them. Can you imagine how evil you have to be to tell someone to quit their job and sell their home to move to another country with you knowing full well you have no intention of going through with it? Well, meet evil personified. Lonnie would actually tell numerous women to do this at the same time! Cancun, Mexico was like a safe haven for this guy. He figured there was no way these women could do anything after they were scammed, because he was safe in Mexico and they could not convict him of any crime. Well, Lonnie Adams forgot about one thing. When he fled from Florida to Mexico to avoid trial, he used someone elses passport. He was using the name Jimmy Adams. The US Marshalls came and got him and brought him back to Florida in shackles. He went to prison for a few years, but is now out. Since his probation is over, it seems Lonnie / Jimmy Adams is back at it again, trolling the internet dating sites. Now he is telling women he was a businessman who is so rich he does not need to work. He is in Chicago, Illinois, and now is telling women on the dating sites he only came there from Mexico to take care of his sick mother. (He doesn't mention the US Marshalls or being incarcerated lol) One would think he is finding it more difficult to do this here in the US because he can be found and he can get into trouble much easier than when he was in Mexico. Also, it was one thing to not have a drivers license in Mexico or a car.......but when you are over 45 and living in Chicago? Most women would wonder why such a "rich" man doesn't have a vehicle or drivers license. That, plus living with his mother = loser in most women's eyes. If he was so well off why isn't his mother living with him in his house? Why doesn't she have a full time nurse? Since Lonnie Adams can no longer use the bike business idea of getting women to invest, his latest shtick revolves around stem cells. His "idea" is to go after pro athletes and organize a surgery for them, their flight, and hotel rooms. Like pro athletes don't have a staff to do this? These rich athletes couldn't put that together with their own doctor? Of course they can. And pro athletes would do a background check before they handed over money to some stranger, and they would find out he has a criminal record. If you happen to come in contact with a guy named Jimmy or Lonnie Adams on a dating website (or anywhere) run for the hills. He will send you pictures of his bodybuilding glory days, spin his lies about how wealthy he is, his business ideas, and his time in Mexico, his clothing businesses etc. If you think you have come in contact with him we would love to hear from you. Lonnie Adams likes to quote the bible and refrigerator magnet-type sayings to sound spiritual. This guy does not even possess a conscience and obviously has no fear of karma.
He likes to talk about his glory days of bodybuilding, fitness, and put down as his occupation recently : health. (Obviously not mental health)The pictures are not photoshopped, he really is that short and has really short legs. Since he does not hold down a full time job (God forbid) Lonnie Adams tends to use free internet dating sites like plentyoffish.com (he is on there at the time of this posting)
His email addresses tend to have his name in it and usually a reference to Mexico, sports, etc. For example: cancunjimmy@yahoo.com and laincancun@yahoo.com
Here is a link to where he was deported: http://apostille.us/news/diplomatic_security_helps_return_fugitive_from_mexico_to_face_passport_fraud_charges.shtml

More on Gerald

I had not heard from Gerald for 5 days now and decided to look him up on the internet as a scammer and saw your article on him.

He has scammed me too from Christian Mingle.com alias “divineloving” from mid-July up until this past Friday, Sept 30th. He has 15K of my money sent through Western Union (I still have the receipts and MTCN #s) to assist him buy fiber optic cables for a iZZinet company in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia which they had paid him some 520K for the job in the USA but he had to pay income tax before leaving Malaysia and he was held by customs before coming back to USA (copy of ticket included, payment services check and Ministry of finance letter/bill attached). I also saw Giovanni Daniels during an IM conversation on Yahoo.com. He had phone numbers for a Nigerian cell phone saying the company gave the phone to him because it would be cheaper to make phone calls from it (I did not suspect because iZZinet has a company in Africa but my phone company had called to warn me about money scams with Nigerian phone numbers as that one he had, I even told him about it….he managed to “drop them off the roof of iZZinet when he was adjusting their satellite dishes”—how convenient!). That’s the story in a nutshell….I have all of his emails and IM from him as well.

I would like to get the FBI and Western Union after him too and would like assistance on how to do that—I would think he should be charged with Grand Theft and Extortion at the very least!

Scammer Paul Jenkins on Guardian Soulmates

Hi,

I was contacted by someone calling himself Paul Jenkins on Guardian Soulmates.

He uses this email id: pauljenkins80@yahoo.com.

I'm attaching pictures of him.

He didn't ask me for money, but then I didn't give him the chance.

His story is that he's a widower, an independent oil-rig contractor working with Shell. He said he's based in the UK, at the moment in London/Manchester, and was on an oil-rig in the North Sea. Said his wife was killed in a road accident and that he's got a daughter.

First he said his wife was killed a few months after his 14 year old daughter was born. Then he said his wife died 5 years ago. he said his daughter was living with her grandma in Texas, then last week he said she was studying in Scotland.

He said he was trying to win a contract that would bring him to the UAE (where I live) for two years. first he said he'd got the contract. Then he said he hadn't. He said his daughter wanted to talk to me, and put her on the phone. I can swear it was him, trying to put on a little-girl voice. His daughter by now was 12, going on thirteen, and was off to do a two month dance course at the University of Aberdeen.

Please do let me know if you've got him registered anywhere else!

Beware of Albert Morgan on BlackPlanet

Albert Morgan
DOB 5/03/1968
Has yahoo messenger and yahoo email which is albertmorgan123@yahoo.com
Blackplanet profile name is wonderfulalbert111
BEWARE - Real charmer
asks you to send money via western union
Last contact Phone number is 0011447045787701

I met my scam artist on BlackPlanet.com a dating service online. Actually he found me, just 3mths ago. He sent me a lovely message, than I replied we exchanged email address and messenger details. Where we had been chatting and building a relationship, well that is what he led me to believe, we even exchanged phone numbers. We rang each other many times and he would leave messages on my voice mail how he really missed me and I was everything to him and meant the world to him and soon we would be together.

He said he lives in Jacksonville , Florida and was traveling to London for work. He was trying to sell a self funded project to the government over there. After a short period of time he told me that all his funds had been used up due to registering for licenses and permits etc and he needs funds to able to finish the deal and receive a large sum of money. I fell for his manipulation and he continued to carry on with stories of the project and I continued to send money to help him. Finally he told me he had received the cheque and was ready to travel to Australia and how we where going to be together and he was going to cash his cheque here and reimburse me all the money he took from me. However of course he needed money for the airfare, he sent me flight details etc and was having a stop over in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia once he reached there he started ringing me again saying he needed money to get through customs, for 2 weeks this continued as he was robbed and needed more money and than had to use that money for renewing his ticket to Australia it just went on and on. He kept promising me we would be together any day now. If I ever questioned him on anything he would say that he was hurt that I would think that, and he would says things like his word was his bond, he even swore on his mother's grave that he was telling me the truth and he would return my money and we would be blissfully happy together. He managed to scam over $6000 from me. I am a single mum with 3 children, I work 2 jobs and just wanted to find love and my life partner. Now I just have to find a third job to recover from all this mess. He has profiles on a lot of sites Netlog, my space, HI5, twoo and these are only the ones I know of.
He is very convincing and doesn't care how his deceit affects your life and what financial mess he leaves you in.

Scammer Scott McKay on Christianmingle

This is my nightmare story. I met what seemed to be a wonderful young man on christianmingle.com. It started out simple, a few e mails through that site, then started e mailing me personally. Then eventually chatted on line, regularly. His story was so real sounding, that he lived about 45 min from me and owned his own company. He had a website for his company, showed that he was the CEO. Everything seemed believable, we chatted a lot on line, talked about church, our kids and every day life. He called me on the phone (of course I did not write the number down) and spoke to me. June 10th, he was taking a trip to London for his company, was to be gone for 3 weeks. After there, we continued to e mail and chat regularly. He was very polite and sweet sounding. He sent lovely e mails that any girl or woman would love to read. He called me his sapphire. Then it wasn't long until he started calling me babe and other sweet names. Then I love yous started coming. I first told him how can you say that you love me when you have not met me. He said he had been praying for a special person in his life and that he knew I was the one. I fell for every bit of it, all because it started from christianmingle.com. It ended after me losing lots of money, I am ashamed to say how much. I just can not believe that I fell for it, after all of the stories I have heard from shows on tv about this.

He claimed to be from IL and that he had a daughter (Kimberly) in college in Italy. He had a sister (Nelly) who lived in Italy as well, who was married and had 3 boys. His name was Scott McKay and was to be born in Merret, Georgia. His e mail address was scott2mckay@yahoo.com, work address was mscott@migacorps.net His daughter's e mail address mckimkay@yahoo.com His sister's e mail nellykay96@hotmail.com They probably all went to the same person. The final straw was that he collasped and had to have emergency surgery and the hospital in London was demanding payment for the surgery. I told his friend who was Nigerian (according to Scott) that I knew that medical care was free in the United Kingdom. His answer was yes for a public hospital, this is a private hospital. I contacted the US Embasy in London and the lady said there is no hospital by that name and the phone number that I was given was a cell number. He did not get any more money, but I am sure he working on the next victim now.

He is probably Nigerian that did not sound Nigerian on the phone, had more of a spanish-european accent. There was a family that used to go to our church that was from Nigeria. His accent was nothing like theirs. I since have had a phone call where they I was threatened to be put on a black list. He pronounced my last name correctly and had the last 4 numbers of my social security number. I will live past this, but it will be very hard and difficult for a long time, because I sent money to him instead of paying my regular bills. I also took out 2 loans for that idiot, believing that he was buying plane tickets and could not be renewed when he tried to use them. He e mailed me copies of the boarding passes and pictures of him doing different things, one at a beach with scuba equipment and one in a church playing the saxaphone. He was a very nice looking man, making it even easier to believe what he was saying to me. I have saved all of the emails and pictures although it probably will be useless to do, but perhaps it will save someone else from their scam.

Scammer Bill Arthur on Match.com

Ladies beware a very handsome man named Bill Arthur, working in Nigeria purchasing textiles, gold, fabric, antiques to bring back and open his antique store in Boston., claims to be from Boston. He says he's a widower for 5 years now. He moved to Boston from California one year ago to start a new life and leave his sad memories behind. He claims to have been born in Austria to an Austrian Dad and a mom from the Bahama Islands. But, sadly, he's an only child and his parents died together in an auto accident 8 years ago...

He slipped up and sent me an email that I had received a few days ago from another man on Match.com. I recognized it immediately and called them both on it. I reported both user names Pete000000NEW to Match.com and Bubblesmileyman9. They both sent me different pictures. One man had a child, one did not. One was a widower, one was divorced. One was from Boston, one was from NJ. But, I got an identical email from Bubblesmileyman9. He will immediately ask you off of the website IM and uses affectionatebill1957@yahoo.com for email and chatting. Luckily I caught on before things went too far but he had me hooked a bit with his lovely lines and romantic talk. He will call you baby, hun, sweetie a lot and very early one, I mean within the first or second email.

My advice, as the dating sites warn, don't give out any secondary email or IM addresses until you have spent weeks and weeks getting to know someone or you have met them in a public place to verify who they are.

The old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true it usually is.....Go with that, it is very accurate.

Mostly, follow your gut and instinct. if it goes too quickly and sounds too tragic, get out!!

A SAMPLE OF ONE OF HIS OH SO CHARMING LETTERS!!!!

You sound like all I want, you are my perfect match. I am really going to put a lot of effort into writing this letter to you in hopes it will provide you with a good understanding of who I am, what I am all about, and what has made me the person I am today. The reason I am going to write a letter rather than just send a message is because I am serious about wanting to establish a quality friendship with you, and because of the fact I rarely contact anyone on here, so when I do you can be rest assured I am serious about my intentions. Smiles, you are welcome darling, i am blushing right now. I am sincere man, and i will never do anything to hurt my woman. I'm really a honest, caring and trustworthy man. I do not tell lies, I'm very simple too.

I decided to move here because of my business and I need privacy for my future due to the memories of my late wife at my former home. I have lived here close to a year now, the worst part of it is I have been unable to meet the right woman yet because of my wants. I believe that our faith is the very foundation of our lives, and also of a great relationship that will endure the test of time, I am looking for a woman that will be able to listen to me , communicate his feelings to me , make me laugh, hold and comfort me in need, stand by my side, respect me, passionate lover in every way, support me in every way, love me and only me, make me smile, protect me when needed, romantic time to time ,constantly reactive, and treat me right, I hate cheating/double dating for that I am one woman man... I know you will think what is a good looking man like me doing on here... Yes the reason I came on to the internet to find the special person who deserves all the love and passion that makes up my heart and soul is because I do not have the time to meet others out in a public setting, and the fact I feel you can learn so much about someone through letters, as a person has to take there time and think about the words they want to express, so it allows you to gain a better understanding of someone than you would probably otherwise.

Yes i got into the US when i was 10 years old, and we moved to the states It was really a great move, cause I've always wanted to visit the US. My parents passed away some years ago, and i really do miss them a lot, they mean a lot to me. I am the only child of my parents, and i miss them so very much.

About my work, well i have stores i sell all this things too, but once i get back home i want to set up my own store and i am so glad i want to do this. I'm going to name the store Arthur Antiques & CO. I really can't wait to get back home anyways, cause i want to meet you too. You really caught my attention sweetie. am into Sales and Marketing. I am into buying and selling of antiques, fabrics, Sculptures, and Gold, other things like Textiles. I am currently in Nigeria right now as we speak, i came here to purchase this items, and i want to set up my own store when i get back home. I got here 3 weeks ago, and i will be coming back to the US in a couple of weeks time, next week i should be home i think, because i would love to meet you. You really caught my attention, and i would like to know more about you. My work has never take me out of the states for work before, but this time, It seems to take me far miles..

Dear The very reason I am interested in establishing a friendship with you is because I feel I have a lot to offer you in the way of a friendship and I know I have a lot to share with you that will be of interest to you and even some things that will surprise you. I am very much a man of substance and I am very unique in today's society because I live my life through my spirituality and through the word of God and because I have such a strong understanding of what I feel my role in life is suppose to be. I am a man of integrity and my word is my honor!. I have very high standards for myself and my life is all about providing love, peace and happiness to others. For you to get a better understanding of me picture a waterfall in your mind and instead of all the water overflowing it is all the love and passion I have in my heart to give to others who are deserving, as the love and passion has an endless flow coming out of my heart.

Where others write many people and keep there messages short because they are all about how many they can write, I am the opposite and very selective in whom I choose to write and I like to give them my very best even if it is in a long letter such as this. I know the type of person who I want to build a friendship with so I am willing to put the time and effort in my messages to show that to you.

It is better to try and fail than to give up and never know if you could have succeeded.
Hugs and Kisses,
Bill