Victim of Advanced Fee Fraud?
This is in two parts –I already have been scammed by Advanced Fee Fraud
I am currently in the process of being scammed by Advanced Fee Fraud
To read about Advanced Fee Fraud and its variants, click here.
I already have been scammed by Advanced Fee Fraud
The problem with Advanced Fee Fraud is its international aspect. The majority of victims of this type of crime are from Europe or America, and the scammers typically come from Africa, especially West African nations like Nigeria. This makes it difficult to impossible to retrieve money back and sadly at the moment there is very little recourse for victims. People who have lost money should always report the crime to their local police, along with a transcript of all emails and email addresses used in the scams. As we said there is not much the police can do to get your money back but they will log the case for you.
The FBI and Secret Service will do the same, and only launch serious investigations if the amount of money lost reaches the hundreds of thousands.
The best place to log complaints is the IC3.gov site, which is the Internet Crime Complaint Center. They work in partnership with the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center and log all reported cases of Internet fraud. Again they can’t do much to get your money back but the more information they have the better they can warn future victims – and if anything is going to be done in the future to further crack down on these types of crimes, the IC3.gov site will most likely be heavily involved, so the more information they have, the better.
There are also many anti-scam sites like this one that archive known tactics and email addresses to warn potential future victims.
For example try these great sites where you can report a scam and they will archive it for you - www.report-online-scams.com, or www.scamvictimsunited.com, and we want to hear your story as well at www.thatsnonsense.com.
Victims should also be warned that the likelihood of being scammed again has increased. Scammers will log your email and know you have been defrauded once and this makes it more likely you can be defrauded again. (scammers haven’t taken into account you have read this article.) Common “follow-up” scams include the particularly nasty “Fraud Rebate Scams” where previous victims will receive emails from Nigerian officials (or similar) or past victims telling you to contact Nigerian Officials (or similar). These emails will purport that the victim can get their money back. Victims jump at the chance to get try and get a refund of their losses but this new scam will just ask you to pay more fees (like release or courier fees) and only further the loss.
If you have given scammers your bank details you should tell your bank straight away and they can take action to stop unauthorised payments if you have given them enough information to do this. Giving them just your account number and sort/routing number is not enough for them to make a withdrawal so you don’t have to worry about that.
Other than the advice above, there is not a lot victims can do, other than put it down to a bad experience and warn friends and family of their story to stop them ever becoming victims in the future.
I am currently in the process of being scammed by Advanced Fee Fraud
If you ever find yourself in the middle of what you first thought was a legitimate deal which turned out to be what you expect is Advanced Fee Fraud, read on.
If you have already given them money, then like the above section reads, you are unlikely to get it back. However most advanced fee fraud scams try and get a series of payments from you, so it is probable that the scammers will be communicating with you in order to get more money.
The first step is to stop all communication. This includes email, instant message, and if they have been calling you, just to hang up. If the scammers are persistent, and they often can be, just report that all communications and transactions between the two of you are over. Don’t say why, because many fraudsters of very talented at twisting the truth in order to get you to believe them.
Worried about retribution for ignoring them?
Don’t be.
Many scammers may get agitated by the sudden lack of response and send threatening letters but again these should be just ignored.
Even if scammers have your personal details like address, it is not in their interest to come looking for you. They are usually half way across the world and getting to you would be difficult. They are just after you money. It is unheard of, of people getting hurt by 419 scammers, unless the victim travels to the country of the scammer (e.g. Nigeria) which of course is never advised.
What you should do next pretty much runs similar to the procedure outlined above – IC3.gov and report to local police.
Scammers will use many tactics to try and get you to start falling for the scam again. Here are a few –
- Claim someone hacked their accounts to send you fraudulent emails, but now the deal is back on track.
- Claim you are breaking the law or (ironically) commiting fraud if you stop responding to them. Of course this is not true.
- Threaten you with physical harm. Again, as we mentioned above, these are idle threats
In the future the chances of getting your money back may increase but for now it is unlikely. Always try and report if you have been scammed. This makes it harder for scammers to trick future victims.
Craig Haley
ThatsNonsense.com
