Palmerston North mum, son lose $200,000 to scam

The 71-year-old woman has lost about $70,000 in retirement savings and her son, 46, owes more than $100,000 for his contribution to "a very believable" scam, which has played out during the past 18 months.
A reverse mortgage has also been taken out on their home.

Both declined to be named.

The son, who lives with his mum, told the Manawatu Standard yesterday he also has other debts to meet.

He declined to say how much debt, except to say, "too damn much".

"I can meet the repayments. That's all I can worry about."
To add to their woes, the police cannot do anything. The pair not only voluntarily gave the money away, they continue to do so.

The pair are trusting who they believe to be the Central Bank of Nigeria to "investigate" the fraudulent email scam and have paid a further $10,000 for the privilege.

The woman fervently believes the "Nigerian bank" won't let her down "I trust them," she said and maintains some of the emails were legitimate.

Meanwhile, they incurred "late fees" for not getting an application to the bank in time.

Yesterday, sitting in her living room filled with hundreds of collectible porcelain dolls, the woman spoke of her rapport with the scammers, how they often exchanged information about family members and "day-to-day banter".

When the son was on the phone, he and the scammer would "have a good crack (joke) with one another. It was like brotherly banter," she said.

Hard-luck stories were sent to the pair and the woman would reply to their pleas to send money.

"The man said his daughter had had a fall."

On this occasion, a payment was made of $400. However, some individual payments reached $10,000.

The elderly woman rejects she is lonely, saying she keeps busy in her job as a caregiver and other voluntary community groups.

"I do have a life."

She fervently trusts the Nigerian bank's spokesman to retrieve some, if not all, of their money by a December 20 deadline the bank has set. The woman said a Nigerian court case is also pending.

"I know they won't let me down."

Read the rest of the story at: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3891882a11,00.html

Making Friends, Meeting People and Getting Dates on the Internet

It appears that online dating has come to stay with us. But for many people, especially the very busy people, they have used only dating or matchmaking sites hitherto.
And not a few of these people have been scammed of their money via these sites.
Rather than use dating or matchmaking sites alone, here is a list of some other places where you can possibly make friends, and maybe get dates.
The major advantage in these places is that you can discuss matters of mutual interest, which tends to draw you closer.

1.Yahoo Groups: Yahoo as well as other major mail portals has groups where you can interact with people from all across the world.
They have groups on almost every topic under the sun. You can join a group in the areas of your interest, start to make posts and get to meet new people and make friends.

2.Friendship networks: myspace, hi5 and so on provide fora for you to meet with other people. These sites are specially made for social networking, and you can take advantage of this opportunity.

3.Volunteer Groups/Communities: There are some places where you can offer support and help to other people who are in need as at that moment.
What you should have at the back of your mind is that many times, what you know or have experienced before could be of immense help to many other people.
You could look for such a group of people online and join that community.
It could be a divorce group, or a health and fitness community among others.
You should consider joining that community of people and help others out of your knowledge and experiences.
In turn, you get to meet new people with whom you can interact.

In all these groups, it is advisable that you go there with the aim of giving out before getting. Many people go into such groups or places with the sole aim of getting what they want.
Hardly do they care about what other people want or their needs .
Be sensitive to the needs of others in such communities and you will soon have many friends.

Many people complain about not having friends. There is no reason at all for anyone to be without friends.
All you need to do is to be a good friend, a person that people want to be with.

Once you are ready to help others and to be a part of their life in some way, you will soon have more friends than you can cope with.
And it will just be a matter of time before you start getting dates.

Alan Prince is a writer and researcher on romance scams and other internet scams. His work has educated many people about the activities and operations of scammers. You can read more about romance scams at his site www.elovedeceptions.com,or you can read his blog at www.romancescams.blogspot.com