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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hey girls scott schwartz still claims he is in the army in iraq. and he has a lawyer that emails me and says that scott’s both died and left him 30,000,000.00 in a trust fund in dubai. and guess where the lawyer is supposed to live the uk but he lives in nigeria. i found out that even the lawyers email comes from sunnyvale california as does scotts. now there is a new one sarg. scott_steven7542@yahoo.com he says he is in the marines and that his name is scott mike steven yeah ok .
Ladies and Gents,
I was scammed as well but sent nothing, if you go to asoldiersprospective.com you will see that i will not stop fighting this, but be aware 99.9%of them are scammers, I found the best way to deal with this circus is to go to greenebeanscoffee.com
and send a real Soldier a real cup of coffee,a simple $2.00 will buy a coffee for them, $60.00 will get 30 soldiers a wonderful large drink of they’re choice, now thats worth the effort and the money, not sending money to africa!!!!!
I even got a pen pal out of it and it makes your heart feel wonderful.
even if you dont want to contribute please tell your friends and put it on your face book it’s sooooo worth it.
Thanks,
Susan.
hi karen
tohose message made me realise a lot of me. thank you. well i still feel stupid n all of it. it does make me look desperate to be with someone. make me wonder if there is a real true man out there or are they just the loser scum that women like us encounter. why is it that we the inteligent and successful woemn that always end up this way
Hi,
I have been contacted by an individual who calls himself Garry Haggard and uses the e-mail address … He found me through lavalife. He says he has a son in Ghana who is 15 – his e-mail address is …. I got suspicious of him after he said that the had a type of car that is not sold in North America. He is also on the website Badoo – I did a website search and found his name there, signed up by a member, and saw similiar picutres. He has stolen quite a few pictures of one soldier. A women there was alerting people that he was a fraud artist. I reported him to lavalife and badoo. I have not heard back from them yet. I hope this person (or I believe this is actually many people) is caught. Alert all of your friends so this will not happen to them. I was lucky that I caught on after two days – but I could have fallen for him too and been suckered in. Apparently they have some sort of script they follow.
Reply to Lucy: Steve Ruddock, Lucy you said ‘hi, im trying to find out information about a guy that a relative has been in contact with he sounds really dodgy and is asking for money claiming to be a soldier in the us army, i have found a reference to someone with the same name on another dating scam website, his name is stephen ruddock, anyone know anything about him? i want to try and find out if he is genuine or not!’ I’ve been contacted by Steve Ruddock on Direct Dating website and we’ve been instant messaging for a couple of days now. I’d love to exchange his pictures with you to see if he’s the same guy. His ip address is coming up in Wichata, USA and not Baghdad…..
Hi here is another to add to the long list. William (Bill) haggard. I do have a picture with his name on uniform. He has a couple of email address as well kindhearted..hotmail.com and kindhe yahoo.com. I have looked through alot of sites and cannot find him anywhere. He was on singleparentmeet.com and his profile is now gone. I did the ip adress look up and it was from Saudi Arabia. The give away was he wanted something sent for his birthday and the addess i had to send it too was in Ghana. didn’t send anything. How can i find the real person to let him now that this is happening?
Hi all,
I’ve been in contact with a guy since Dec 2009 via email, text & IM. Has anyone else been given or seen the following information: –
Name: James Grove
Age: 47 years old
Birthday: 3rd August
Birth: Portuguese born, American father & British mother
Vital statistics: 6’1, Medium build, grey/white hair, brown eyes, no facial hair
Marital status: divorced
Sibling: Sister – Canada
Children: 1 son called Lawry 12 years old – lives with ex wife in Florida
Rank: Captain, 1st Sergeant or Sergeant Major
Resides: UK – Acton, West London – Lived approx 7+ years. US – Louisiana
Army Service: 15 years
Position: U.S Army assigned to the U.N Military Unit – on both pay roles
Previous: IT at UCLA
Currently: Islamabad, Pakistan – since approx 16.1.10; main office is in London
Job: Nuclear & mechanical engineer; either working in the field or carrying out research into nuclear activities – can fly jets
Flights home: Gatwick – U.S have a hanger/wing
Email: j
Mobile: O2 – 07955124531
Thanks
Hi Kendra
Did his uniform have a surname on it. I have been able to identify the real Hannett, using the surname and then matching photos on the facebook (which is the most likely place that they were lifted from). I sent him a message on facebook yesterday just to let him know what was happening and told him if he wanted more details to contact me. Haven’t heard back yet but at least he will now know.
Tammy,
Don’t beat yourself up too much. Lots of smart and intelligent women have fallen for this scam. I work for a division of the government that deals with all types of scams. Think how embarassed I was when I realized I too became a statistic. I hadn’t seen this one until the very day I came back to work after making the stupid Western Union transfer. Sitting on my desk was a complaint, detailing exactly what I was involved in. Talk about being shocked. When you’re involved with a situaton it is hard to be objective and see what’s really happening. The best we can do is to get the word out to others and realize that it’s because of the all the wonderful qualities of kindness and trust and caring that we possess, that we are still these beautiful beings. Meanwhile the scumbag sociopaths that we encounter are still unhappy miserable losers that have to take advantage of our goodness because they possess none. I’d rather be me.
The attempted acammer on me was “Cpt. Dennis Staffotd, 82nd battalion, Kabul, Afghanistan” – I was on ChristianCafe playing around… As many of you, he had undying love for someone he never met in person… he had been hurt by an ex-wife who cheated on hom… had been in Kabul for 18 months… and he was kicked off of ChristianCafe for abuse, which was the first flag. I was told about this TS2 equipment and paying $250 for it – second flag was that it had to be sent via WU. I inquired about it – he tells me “We are special forces and we have to do things like that so Taliban and Al-Qaeda won’t trace us”. Third flag… And to top it off, he started tellinga me about some “unofficial leave” they could apply for, and how it would cost $12000. So, after that, I heard no more from “ts2equip@techie.com” – and I only heard from “Dennis” today when I called his bluff. Freaking amazing! So, beware of anything with ‘dddstffy6464’ or ‘ddd_staffy6464’ in the email. It’s a FAKE! But I wonder if all those pics he sent to me are of a real man in the military – I am sure he’d love to know about this scam…
Hi Ladies,
I finally found out some answers thanks to the help of my oldest son and his buddies (he is ex Air Force, still works as a civilian on base and has lots of enlisted friends) His buddies helped me find out that this said Cpt. Mathew Swain is in fact a scammer. He has more than one IP listing and the cell number I was given for his mom I did a reverse search and this is a number that is in NC not Tx as he states this is where she lives. My son is contacting the Air Force task force today to let them get the ball rolling on this creep and I will be forwarding all info to the investigator with the US Army CID. I feel like such a fool for falling for this scam, I considered myself a smart and I am a well educated woman with a nursing degree. The sad part is I am out some money and I feel sorry for this soldiers if he is not aware of this and if it is his picture being used.
Watch out for “Cpt. Dennis M. Stafford, 82nd battalion in Kabul, Afghanistan”, too…
my scammer came tried again but with a different name and picture this time he claimed to be colonel tom burgess the dumn head used the same surname as before i played along for a while then he said he was going on patrol and i couldnt resist saying “oh are you going with your brother robert” funny havent heard from him since !!!
Hi ladies it”s me again I would like to know if anyone out there has heard of a Cpt. Mathew Swain I have searched various sites, done the yahoo search, military, my oldest son is ex Air Force and still works as a civilian on base and is trying to find out what he can and asking his friends to help out here. SO IF ANYONE HAS HEARD OF THIS Cpt. Swain AND PLEASE HELP I AM NOT SURE WHERE ELSE TO CHECK????? Especially since I have contacted the CID, my gut is telling me that he is a scam and I would like to find out so that I can do whatever I can to inform others. So if anyone has any info, ideas, or where else I can search to try and find out info then PLEASE HELP. I have reported him to facebook, my space, yahoo, and not sure what to do next. The CID was not of any help. SO PLEASE HELP I AM ALREADY OUT MONEY AND DON’T WANT IT TO HAPPEN TO ANYONE ELSE
Hi Karen
I did some further searching and found the website http://www.IC3.gov and have now put in a full report. I would suggest to any other lady who has been scammed to do the same, it probably won’t help you but might help to stop someone else being put in the same position.
Regards
Pauline
Hi Karen
I have contacted the US Embassy in Canberra via email to find out if there is anything I can do, I would also like to contact the IC3 but can’t seem to get any contact details on the internet. Do you have an email address that I could use.
Regards
Pauline
There is one good thing as far as the photos I was sent was that his surname was showing on the uniform, so if anyone receives photos with HANNETT on the uniform, know instantly that this is a scam.
Did anyone elses photos have a name on the uniform?
HI Jazz
My scammer has been back in touch again so I’m going to take the same action and keep stringing him along. He tells me he is going to pay back the money!! that will be the day.
Just hang in there, I’m not sure that we will be able to do anything, but hopefully whilst they are talking to us we will be saving someone else
Regards
Pauline
hi pauline
did the ip check again n u r so rite. its from nigeria. well, m gonna write to d us embassy in london n see wat will apen n will keep u guys up to date. in d mean time m gonna keep talkin to him. i am so mad at me, i feel so stupid.
jazz
Pauline, that is good news you were able to find out where the emails originated from. The site I’ve used is whatismyipaddress.com and then clicked on trace email. If you cut and paste the whole header into the box, it gives you all kinds of info. I think it told me that IP address was associatded with the AFRINIC internet system and I went there to find out who the server was. The US internet system is on the INTERNIC system. You could try writing to them and explain the situation. I don’t know if they will do anything or not. The other thing to do is file a complaint with the IC3, which is a Federal Agency set up to track internet crime. You may pass that info onto them as well. Glad to hear you’re able to get info, it helps to deal with the situatin to have some knowledge. Good luck!
Hi Pauline n Lisa Ross
Thanks for d advise. I would like to share the pics this lt timothy bills sent to me. If any of u cud e mail me pls thejazzie206@yahoo.co.uk. Please e mail me and CJ i did e mail you n attached the pics n i wud be so grateful if u cud check it out for me.
Thank you again
Jazz
iwas contacted via a dating site by a man who said he was colonel robert burgess us army stationed at camp victory in iraq he was 58 and had been in iraq for 8months and was leaving in one months time.he came from norfolk virginia divorced with one son.we exchanged messages and he seemed very real to me and he would come to heathrow to meet me when his term was over.one morning i had a message saying his luggage was detained at accra because it needednew diplomatic stamps and could i send £3000 to get it sorted out. of course i didnt send any money as i realised this had been a cruel scam.i was to send the money to mr richard osafo stamps dept accra int airport.accra ghana. i did some research and found this man on facebook so i sent him a message to tell him he had been rumbled.this is a very cruel way to extort money from women and its time these predators were caught and punished.
Hi Jazz
I think you only got as far as the Yahoo IP address. If you keep reading through the full address, you will find other numbers that follow the same format eg 76.13.13.85 or 41.218.238.229 this is the one that you need to look at to find the origin of the email. This led me to the information that all the emails originated in Ghana.
Hi Karen
Followed your advice and checked out the IP address, all the emails came from Ghana. One small consellation for me is that the really nice looking person that I thought I was corresponding with and helping is not the scumbag that ripped me off. Is there anything I can do with the information I was able to obtain from my IP search.
I wish I had found out about this website earlier. I have been sucked in by someone claiming to be called George Hannett a sargeant in the US Army based in Iraq. I fell for the love and future plans, then got pulled into the scam about the money being found and needing help to get it out of the country via a diplomat. I sent money to help him as he claimed he had included his military records in the package and kept reassuring me that he would pay me back as soon as he arrived in Australia. If anyone comes across this man please be careful.