This company was contacted by my mother in response to an ad on Craigslist. She has been in extreme financial distress for about a year after having her bank account cleaned out by someone who was "helping" her around the house.
Having not been in this position before, she believed that this was a legitimate offer for a loan in the amount of $15, 000, to be used to pay her property taxes and several other bills that have been in arrears.
The original contact was located in the UK but "associates" called and emailed her from Nigeria.By the time I was informed of what she was doing and obtained information, she had given too much information. Once I realized that the associate was calling from Nigeria, I let her know that it was most likely a scam and that she shouldn't send any more money and to wait and see if there would be any money coming to her. When no money came to her as promised, she called and emailed.
In response, the associate told her that she needed to send $500. When she informed the associate that she had no where to get this money, she was later told that she needed to send $850. She was told that the funds would be used for tax purposes.
After insisting that she had no money, she received an email from the UK stating that she should "borrow by all means" to get the money she had asked to be loaned. Every subsequent phone call after that was insisting that she send money and she would get her loan.
I crafted a letter for her to send stating that there were too many red flags (yahoo and hotmail email addresses, no references to the company on the internet, associate was from Nigeria, etc) and that she believes that she is being scammed. She is now waiting for a response (or not).
She found this company on craigslist but hadn't been aware of the red flags. She was only aware of the fraudulent check scam and had steered clear. She now knows what to watch out for.
0 comments