Swindlers posing as sweethearts

by: Corey Friedman

A Gastonia man who thought he found love online was duped by his virtual sweetheart into shipping stolen goods to South Africa.

Someone bought 64 bridesmaids’ dresses and an embroidery machine with stolen credit cards and sent the merchandise to the man’s home, said Gastonia Police Detective Jeremy Williams. The victim’s online girlfriend told him to mail the goods to Ghana because many U.S. companies don’t ship directly to the South African nation.

“He talked to her online for about 15 months,” Williams said. “He called her his fiancée. He professed his love for her. He sent her small amounts of money by wire transfer. For all we know, it could be a guy on the other line.”

Police are alerting local residents to an upswing in online dating and work-from-home financial scams. Williams said up to 10 new cases are reported each month, and the scams cost city residents “hundreds of thousands of dollars” each year.

“Fraud is pretty rampant in Gastonia,” he said. “We have cases that reach multiple states and multiple countries.”

Job scams unmasked

Soaring unemployment and the economic downturn have made many job-seekers consider part-time, work-from-home opportunities. Fraudsters will often post advertisements on job boards such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com seeking mystery shoppers who will spend money at local businesses and evaluate their customer service, Williams said.

Applicants will be quickly hired and mailed a check for their first assignment. They’re usually asked to deposit the check in their bank account, keep a percentage for their pay and expenses and wire the remaining amount to someone through Western Union or MoneyGram.

In mystery shopper scams, the checks are fraudulent, and victims’ banks will require them to repay the full amount. Some checks will look legitimate, complete with watermarks and company logos. Williams said many are drawn on Canadian banks.

“A basic rule of thumb is never wire any money whatsoever,” he said. “We can’t get the money returned. Most of the time, we can’t even find out where it went. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

A similar scam is the reshipping job — victims are told to sign for packages delivered to their homes and reship them to destinations outside the U.S. using prepaid shipping labels which the employer provides. The goods are usually purchased with stolen credit cards and need to be reshipped because most companies won’t ship directly to Ghana or Nigeria, Williams said.

When applying for jobs online, Williams recommends checking out the prospective employer to ensure it’s a legitimate business before providing personal information. E-mail addresses from free Web sites such as Gmail, Yahoo! or Hotmail and generic job applications without company names or logos are potential warning signs.

Applicants who won’t wire money or participate in other likely fraudulent schemes can still be victims of identity theft if they completed the job applications, which ask for full names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers.

Sweetheart or swindler?

Also on the increase are online dating scams in which a man or woman will be asked to wire money or ship merchandise purchased with stolen credit cards to a romantic interest in another country.

“People prey on their loneliness,” Williams said. “On these dating Web sites, they know that you are looking for someone to talk to or chat with.”

Many scammers will tell their online mates that they’re in the hospital and need money for an operation or ask for money to buy a passport and airline ticket for an in-person visit. Williams says such requests are telltale signs of fraud.

“Never wire any money whatsoever to someone you meet online,” he said.

A Gastonia woman who met a scammer posing as a missionary to Africa on a Christian dating Web site was asked to reship some goods to the missionary’s orphanage in Ghana. She contacted police after receiving notice that the merchandise was bought with stolen credit cards, and authorities recovered 23 pairs of Reebok athletic shoes, nine belts, three hats, two watches, three bottles of cologne, two pairs of sandals and one pair of sunglasses.

Many fraudsters operate in Ghana and Nigeria, but Canada is now a burgeoning base for online scams as well, Williams said.

Online dating scams can be sophisticated operations, with several scammers posing as the same person and sharing details of each conversation to maintain continuity.

“This is a full-time job for them,” Williams said. “They’ll have multiple scams going at once. You may not even be talking to the same person each time.”

When in doubt, police say, check it out. If a suspicious circumstance presents itself while looking for work or love, call Williams at the Gastonia Police Department, 704-866-6884.