I just came across a post on “A Soldier’s Perspective” discussing a rather disgusting and disturbing trend that has guys posing as soldiers on Internet dating sites. Here’s the quote from CJ’s:
The latest trend involves trolling internet dating sites and convincing women that they are honorable Soldiers who have fallen in love and would do anything to communicate with the object of their affection. But, because they are deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, they need you to sign up for an expensive telecommunications service like “Military TELEX” in order to make that happen. They profess unending love as their motivator and, unfortunately, many women have fallen for it.
The BIG red flag here is that the guy is asking for money. NEVER fall for that con.
If you come across anyone on a dating site who is asking you for money, regardless of the reason; block them immediately from further contact and then report them to the internet dating service.
You can also check out who is really behind their email address…
AND / or their telephone number…
To read specific details about about one incident, read CJ’s post “The New Military Dating Scam”.
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Hay all just a reminder ok go to MILATARY.COM @@ type in the persons name and E pay code if thier real then you sould find info on them !!!!
when they got in and where they are and when thier getting out so please dont get fooled ok look here o my goodness !!!!!
and 3rd for gods sake dont send money to no one if they ask for money they arent real and its a scammer IF IT ANT FAMILY ASKING FOR A LOAN ????
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< !!!!!! (((((( RUN ))))) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YEA THEY SAY A SUCKERS BORN EVERY SEC HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM THATS SAD !!!!!!
Sgt James Rellinger is also using Sgt Johnny Rellinger as his name
I am currently talking with a E-6 staff sergent in bagdad who has a 15 yr old son named eric… the soldiers name is robert white. A little similar to lisa’s comment on feb 7 11. Roberts b-day he says is feb 24 and said he comes from spain his son is in africa till he retires in 2 months…. I to hope i have not been lied to. If you know anything please let me know! Oh ya the email he is using is jet_white@hotmail.fr.. and sons is ericwhite1995@yahoo.com
Can anyone tell me if a USA military intelligence officer has the same priviledges as a private? How long do they serve for in one stretch please
Austin Massinger is also the fake name of a scammer who I met on Free Date UK. he goes by the name Austincares01, and his email addy is austinmassinger@y7mail.com. He kept changing his story around. So I copied every msn conversation to a word document. Each time he told me something I would check with my saved document and realise he was full of **** Sometimes his english was excellent (probably copy and paste standard replies), but sometimes his basic english was very poor. I wished he was real because he was so nice. But his errors were just too great – like telling me one day his son lived in USA and the next day that his son lived in UK. – and every time I asked him the time in Kabul (where he was apparently deployed), he got the time wrong. After 3 days I reported him to Free Date and offered to send the copied MSN docs as proof that he is a a scammer. Free date have now blocked him from their site. I am still communicating with him via msn. He is declearing his undying love for me after only 3 days of internet chatting… I think I will just waste his time a bit.
I was wondering how to go about checking someone’s IP address as I’ve been in contact with a gentleman claiming he is Junior Staff Sargeant in US Army. He hasn’t asked for money or anything like that. I am just making sure that he is who he says he is…if you can help I would appreciate it greatly. Thanks..Lyn
Another one to add to the list I’m afraid.
Captain Jeffery Humprey.
jefferyhumprey@yahoo.com
I met him on cupid.com. Says he is in Kabul, Afghanistan. Age 46, 6 ft 3, English mother from Swindon, American father (dead) who was us military. Divorced, son aged 19. Bought a house in Cornwall and aims to live there when he comes back. Going to retire from the army and invest funds in a business. Owns a german breed dog. Holidays in Spain, has visited Barcelona and Vigo. Likes R&B music.
I saw the program on BBC about this sort of scam, got suspicious and started investigating.
The last email I received from him before I blocked him asked me to apply for a special leave permit and phone as we needed to be speaking via phone for at least a week before the special permit could be applied for.
Luckily for me we had not been speaking long, I had not given him any personal details apart from my email address and had not handed over any money.
If anyone has heard from Darrin Ramos again let me know. He had contacted me back in Dec and I am curious if he is still doing it. Thanks
How about some GOOD news for once here? Here’s one. As you know by now I am a real American soldier. I just arrived to Gatwick airport 11 hours ago. I took a bus west and showed up at my girlfriend’s house unannounced and unexpected. (We met online in 2009.) Well I brought a ring and proposed to her, and she said yes.
I never asked her for money, we have met in person many times, and we have definite plans. So, it DOES happen!
I had a scammer named Hannett contact me through match.com. I knew from the start that something was not right. The way his written language sounded was as though it was being written by someone who did not speak English as a native. There were subtle mistakes in grammar that a native speaker would not make. This man too was in the army, stationed in Iraq, and going to go home in March. He claimed he loved me after one conversation, and that is when I told him he had to be out of his mind…..and that I thought he was scammer, and a crappy one at that!! The dummy continued to contact me , but never remembered details of previous communications…scamming on too many other women to bother to remember the lies he told any one of them. I am not sure how anyone could fall for the tricks these con artists come up with. Their games are very transparent.
I was scammed but only for a month. I did get the Ts2 phone through Western Union. Spoke a couple of times then he moved to Nigeria and I had to resubscribe the phone. Of course i didnt. The name Sgt James Pelzer.
Hi, i was contacted thru a dating website online x 2 pretend soldiers one asked for money to help his son as a widower and unable to access any money for them whilst in Iraq i felt compassion and sent $50.oo only and boy was he mad at that.The second marine about same time contacted my profile and said he’d used his friends profile to search website for love and immediately wanted email address.First request was for a satelite phone but i checked TS2 site and found fraud warning and questioned him he apologised said didnt know and then aweek later wanted a computer to chat on send $550 via western union emailed a name and suburb in Australia as i had been suss on Nigerian one earlier i actually looke d up on white pages and rang person she told me she had lost heaps of money and they now using her identity.Dont feel bad they are heartless and convincing very much so i am a nurse and alomost fell for it too. You are a good persdon its them. So watch out for special sgt bernard smith dallas and jamesroger canada in balad iraq. idiots
Dear Debbie,
I’m feeling for you but all I can say is that I’m in the same boat and will suffer for the next 5 years with the loans I tooked out, so stupid of me. Was so much in love that all the red lights and warnings of friends and families passed me by. I’m sorry about you’re sun and they wouldn’t feel a damn for you. I wish I could make contact with you and then we can share some tears. Be strong, Believe in God that everyhing will work out for you again, and date people in you’re area that you can meet face to face within a week if you can before you’re gets broken again!!
Dear All. sorry to hear some of your stories they are so sad.I have been chatting on Be2 dating site with a chap called David Peralta anyone no the name.Bells started to ring the second day.His English was very poor.We chatted for a few days about normal everyday things when he said he loved me how can you love someone youve never met, saying i was his life.His wife had been killed 4 years ago in a car accident he has 2 children a boy called John whoes 15 and a girl called Gail whos 12 they are in boarding school in gatwick. He is with the British army attached to the American peace core he has only asked for money for his phone so far which he didnt get but it wouldnt have taken long before it was more.I tripped him up with military talk I have friends in the army so a few questions and he didnt have a clue.So now theres been no contact.Its a shame when there are genuine soldiers out there who would love to chat to women but these parrsites make us so not want to trust any of them again.Just be carefull and follow your gut feeling because if they sound too good to be true they probably are.EVERYONE BE CAREFULL xxlynn
Debbie, That is horrible news and I am so sorry to hear it. As for where to go, check with your insurance company, you may have coverage for fraud or theft. Can’t hurt to ask. Are you in the UK? Maybe Interpol can get involved. File a police report if nothing else and have the transfer info handy.
Anne, does Jeffrey have other military friends on his profile? Does he have an email address ending in .mil? Does he have an APO mailing address? Has be told you his MOS, DOR, GT score and PEBD? You don’t have to know what those are but he does.
Pam, I am on a business trip now and brought my macbook for travel. AKO only likes you to use Microsoft Internet Explorer. I can check when I get back home for the names but if the pics say E4 and he says O3, it’s fake.
Any photo on AKO are what the individual has uploaded. Mine shows me in a Hawaiian shirt. Not exactly the one I should have posted for effect. 🙂 But if you have a photo of a guy and I can find the same name and rank and maybe unit patch if visible in the photo then yes you can message him. A friend found a guy claiming to be a Sergeant Major. Higher rank tend to have a bio page available to the public, so just google the name and rank for starters. The Sergeant Major turned out to be real but of course it was someone impersonating him. Other soldiers do know their images get used but what can we do? Once a picture is out there it’s never coming back. A scam that hits today will fade away and hit again in a few years. You know those emails you get that say to send to everyone, and you saw it ten years ago? Same thing. Same scam, different targets.
I guess the best that we can do is tell others before things get bad for them. Just like no one needed virus protection for a long time on computers, now we all demand it.
Dear Robert McLaughlin,
The BBC contacted the U.S. Embassy for me and confirmed 99.9% that its a scam. I confronted the person and they admitted to me that they weren’t the person in the picture. He apologised to me and told me he wanted to tell me earlier but didn’t know how to bring up such topic! Anyway, I just needed closure. I’ve also subsequently found out from coming across the MiGente site and a woman by the ID ECSTACYnDIAMONDS (Sounds dogby but its not!!) that she is posting pictures on her page to make people aware. There are loads of pictures on there of “my Matthew”..ones I was sent and ones I wasn’t. The best thing though was finding out that “Lingo” is alive and well, still serving his country and happily married. So, I’m gonna put myself back out there and start again…living in the U.S. has always been a dream of mine so I’m gonna continue to pursue it and hopefully find genuine love from a genuine man..and if I come across a “genuine soldier” then it’ll be a bonus 🙂 I’ve bounced back from this relatively quickly but that’s my nature…and thankfully, unlike some of the other women, I didn’t part with any money…just wasted emotions.
Debbie – have you reported this to the police? I know it’s hard – trust me I was in tears on the phone to the officer but it needs to be done. I have been in financial difficulty before (although not for this) and I’m a single parent and the only option I had was to declare myself bankrupt. That option was open to me purely because I didn’t have a mortgage. If you are renting then I would suggest you contact a Financial Advisor and discuss your options. Infact, irrespective of that, I would contact an FA anyway. They will tell you what the best thing is for your situation. I hope you can sort it out because I know only too well what that dark place is like!
look forward very much from hearing from anyone who can help give me advice on where to go from here
i have discovered a Capt Aaron .Johnson of camp victory Afghanistan,is a scam and he has had £12,000 off of me . i took out a loan, overdarft , used all my savings. when i thought things wer’nt right i checked that what looked like official documentation, asked lots of questions , he always seemed to be able to prove it was all above board. i have a degree in nursing and cant believe i have been so stupid . i feel devasted , violated and now i havent a clue how i shall manage financially as i cant afford to make the monthly payments to the bank. this evil wicked thing scum , has destroyed my life and that of my Autistic son. im in such a dark place at the moment and dont know how i shall go on.
Just to inform you if you have any contact with a military called Ralph Edwards serving in Irag is a scammer
I have been on match.com and have more scammers then anything. I find it funny anymore. All you have to do is read out loud what they type. They don’t speak like americans… they speak like they are from another country. I had one guy tell me he was an E6 in the army. I requested a picture and he posted a picture of a guy with the name he gave BUT the solider was wearing Capt Bars. So i pointed it out to him and he disappeared from the site. since then I have had at least one scammer aday. prob the same guy. Also I it took me 5 mins to locate the Capt he used to show me…..He was on Facebook!!!
Hi to you all. Well i am currently chatting to a 50 yr old stf sgt Jeffrey Repetto supposedly in Iraq. Like the rest of you he seemed very nice. No dead wife but only one son 15 yrs old. About to retire from 20 yrs service..all sounds too familiar. Disturbing that his facebook photos and profile look so real. I’m gunna have some fun with him now and make him sweat a little i think..right before i tell him what a phoney he is!!! (OMG i hope he is a real phoney lol)
MSG McLaughlin,
Can you find out if there is a soldier with the last name Barcinas currently serving in the Army? I have seen several profiles now with this man’s picture – after I finally faced the fact that he was not the man behind the emails and started looking. His uniform clearly shows he is and E-4 SPC, but the scammer tried to tell me he was a Cpt – lol. Using the first names Raymond, Michael and Richmond. Those are only the ones I am aware of….
Also – a question that I have seen asked, but not answered – Is there any way to let these soldiers know that their pictures are being used? And do you have access to photographs when checking for them on AKO?
Sorry for all of the questions, but I don’t have anyone close to me who can check for this info. And some of the other women may be wondering about some of these questions. Thank you so much for all you do – you represent the true image of what a soldier is.
Sharon, I cannot confirm the ages of the Lingos that I found, but based on their ranks I’d assume them to be young. If either is 45 he is a total loser. If you contact the Embassy expect a run around, a privacy issue, and to leave a number. I worked in an Embassy and we were busy enough, and fielding contacts from locals over even what real servicemen do overseas was tough enough, nevermind of they even exist at all. Truly, the best way is to have a friend or relative in the military where they can look this up online in no time.
If anyone has the chance to scam a scammer, go for it! Feel bad about taking money? Give it to charity or one of those who have lost finds here on this board.
I saw an article the other day where scammers in Costa Rica use caller ID spoofing to look like they are calling from the US Government and tell people they have big refunds coming, if they pay taxes first. They got busted. Maybe the US has a deal with them, but I can assure you if the money goes to Ghana, Nigeria or anyplace like that it is gone for good.
These scammers will get anything they can from you. Top ups save them $5 a month, if they have 100 people doing that then we are financing their operation. And what does it cost them? A few chat sessions? And you know they have ten chat windows open at once.
Natalie, to see if the pics are of anyone else go to http://www.tineye.com where you can upload them. It is a search engine for photos like google is for words. if that picture has been used elsewhere the program may know it.
Don’t get thrown off of Internet dating, it is a great way to know the mind of the person and not let the body fool you. At least from the guy’s point of view. :> I am seeing a woman in the UK, have been over there 3 times in a year and brought her here and we are making plans for a future together. It does happen. But in these days of cheap internet phone calls, free calls on skype, free postage from war zones, there is no reason a deployed soldier cannot send you a letter, a photo of him with your picture in his hands, or give details about folks back home. Where did he go to school, who was his favorite teacher, what was his first car, all these things are easy to explain.
here is a challenge for the readers here. Send the link to this page to one single friend as a heads up of what to expect. This will double the readership overnight. Don’t spam your entire address book, but just tell one other person what you learned from here.
I’m determined I’m gonna get this back out into the Media. I’ve got the BBC producer of the Inside Out South show coming to see me on Friday to do a recording of my story. I’ve also logged this with the police and an officer is coming round tomorrow morning. “Matthew” hasn’t signed in for a few days…I’m hoping that they are gonna ask me to keep up the pretence that I don’t know who he is and somehow try to stop these people by tracking the transactions etc..although I have no idea if that is possible or not or whether it has to be handed over to the police full-stop. They’ve already said there isn’t alot they can do as they can’t just send a couple of officers over to Nigeria!!! I’m just thankful that I’ve kept everything..receipts, emails the lot so that I can hopefully be a part of ensuring this doesn’t continue to happen. Still gobsmacked that I fell for it..never had myself down as a nieve person! but us women are known for letting our hearts rule our heads!!!
so i guess i can line up in this scamming situation. i got suspicious with that kabul thing. the contact adress i got was . sounding weird to me, was the fact that suddenly out of the blue i had to send a request for talking to him. now way, my answer was that growing up with americans and near the american headquarters and having friends there, nobody was aware of such things. led him to the conclusion that it seemed i knwo more than him, but with that he was offline super quick…within a sec.
what upsets me personally, as i didn’t bring very much of me in this, is the fact, that this person used tons of pics of somebody, i would definitely like to know, if this person is aware that his pics are used and how to find that out. i feel more sorry for the abuse of this persons pictures than anything else….and yeah i have to admit, there’s slight anger growing inside of me, as i am far from being concerned of war issues, as a german, but for my beliefs this is really really not an issue to joke about, because fact is, knowing that from “real” friends of mine having been in iraq or afghanistan, this is not a dance show, people are dying and those guys are seeing a lot of things and have a real hard and tough job to do.
so what am i supposed to do the best with this adress and how can i find out whom those pics belong and maybe warn that person, because as far as i could read the emails, i suppose this person writing the letters is not even american, but in fact nigerian or whatever, as the slang expressions are quite similar to africans i’ve been communicating with, just to see the structure and the difference in the sentences and expressions, as i am not a native english speaker…i tried to find out. if anyone has any idea pls let me know. thx in advance for your help
natalie