The stories of the scammers
In order for the scammers to pretend to have any reason at all to ask for money, it is necessary to invent very special stories. Mostly it is about the fact that the man is supposedly travelling somewhere in the world on business and for various reasons cannot access his bulging account. That’s why he needs someone to bail him out and advance him the money. Of course, he wants to pay it back soon. But that never happens.
What reasons do the scammers give?
Here are some examples of typical stories that scammers tell their victims.
The chief engineer of an oil rig south of Alabama
Mark David Bowman, dob 2/14/62. Supposedly, the chief engineer of an oil rig south of Alabama. He was originally born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has lived most of his life supposedly in Broomfield, CO. His father’s name is Wallis. Mark is divorced from Helen, they share a daughter together named Vanessa. He is supposedly waiting on final inspection results so he can retire “and get a huge pay check and marry me, buy a house, make investments.”
He deep dives every Saturday afternoon to check the machines, and he can talk on the phone, but no video chat.
Eventually, the story will come: “My old company is paying me, and I want you to accept the box”, but he doesn’t want it going to Colorado where his ex would have access to it. And that’s exactly where the problem is – the transport company wants the accruing fees for the box from me. So this guy says he’s coming to NJ “in a couple of weeks” as long as I accept the box and pay the fees.
Only: There is no box, no transport company and no money in the box. It’s all about depriving the victim of her savings.
The oil rig engineer is often used in scam scenarios.
The marine engineer in Turkey
I am dealing with one guy. He told me he was a marine engineer, he is from Korea but has been staying in Hongkong for five years.
Currently he told me that he had a project to do in Turkey, and now he is there for the said project. On his first day there everything was smooth, then suddenly he asked me if I could do a favour to purchase the materials needed. He sent the website where I will purchase and his bank accounts log-in details. And it goes smoothly. Next day, he asked me again to purchase the materials he needed. When I tried to pay for the materials, his bank account was frozen by the bank, and we need to pay for the COT (Cost of transaction). So we pay for it $1300 to get the code. We get the code, the next thing happens, we cannot proceed with the payment because of the Government approved tax code, and they charge us for $5000.
The soldier in Iraq
I’ve been talking to a guy for months who calls himself John Daniel who lives in Johns Island, SC. Mr. Daniel claimed he got deployed to Iraq in September, was supposed to come home on March 22, and I should pick him up from the airport, but did not come because he got deployed to Russia.
He does call from time to time, but he does not Face Time. His supposed to be work schedule is always consistent as far as times, etc. And now he needs money to get out of there. I applied for emergency leave, and now I’m supposed to pay fees for a replacement soldier.
Soldiers stationed in foreign countries are frequently used for scam setups. Since the pictures are almost every time stolen from real soldiers, we are forced to make the person unrecognizable.
The structural engineer working off the coast of Mexico
I have been in contact with Andrea Haegen for a month. At first he was in Texas and then, supposedly, went to work offshore, off the coast of Mexico. He says he’s a structural engineer and has an accent. He claims he’s from Copenhagen, Denmark and has lived in Florida since the age of 27.
He resides in Boca Rotan with his two grown daughters that go to college in Ohio. He has asked for a lot of money. It started small, then got larger over time. Claims he needed it to get off the rig, and when I said the oil company was paying for that, he said not when one of your workers was at fault for the machinery to explode.
He needed money for new equipment because the oil company wouldn’t pay for that. He said he needed money for both Malaria and Typhoid Fever meds, diesel and food. He said that they were living without electricity.
Now he claims he cannot access his money from his job in Switzerland until he pays their taxes. He sent a document that showed $780,000 for that job.
He then asked for $45,000 for that money, and, of course, I was done even before this. Interestingly enough, all of the sudden he asked for $25,000 instead and said that his half-sister’s boss, old Harry, could give or lend him the balance.
He has a very deep voice, is extremely charming and knows what to say verbally most of the time. He claims that once he receives the 25 grand, he can fly out on a chopper and see me in 2 weeks. I will get a hotel here in Tucson, AZ, then I can fly out to see his daughters.
He made sure that I could hear the explosion and would slap his legs and spray the air due to mosquitoes. He knew I was meeting my dad for lunch in Phoenix and asked to speak with him and introduced himself very early on.
He has expressed a grand future of trips, a big house, a better car than what I have now and even called me wifey and said he would buy me a gorgeous rock. Appears to always care and acts as if he genuinely cares about you. Romantic, sexy, etc.
We met on JDate.com, a Jewish dating site, and he claims that his mom is Jewish. She supposedly passed away of colon cancer this past year. He is 62 years old and his pictures do match his photos from Jdate, and I did see him briefly twice through a video chat.
The 1st time he contacted me, but seeing him lasted a blink and the other time, on the so-called rig. He said it was a glitch. He has said that he cannot do video calls because he has to protect his intellectual property.
He claims he is a Christian and does not push his beliefs but prays daily, etc. I’m done, but he needs to be found, fined and jailed.
The contractor on the oil rig
I met Frank Williams on Facebook. He has been messaging me on Hangouts (read more on the topic: Google Hangouts Scams) and Facebook chats for over 7 months, I have sent him over $5000 in various amounts in gift cards, steam cards and prepaid PayPal cards.
He claims to work on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean, and his contract isn’t up for several more months, then he will come and get me, and we will get married, and he will buy me a brand new house and car, and we will live happily ever after.
I have never spoken to him on the phone, only on messaging boards. He claims he is not allowed to have a phone on the oil rig because it could cause the rig to blow up. All of my friends and family have told me he is a scammer, and he isn’t even a real person, but I am so lonely that I enjoy the daily conversation, and I can’t stop chatting with him.
The man from Norway
The man from Norway
I met a guy on Twitter 9 months ago. He was on the Equinor oil platform in Norway. Engineer. He lost his wife and has a son. He has a Swedish band. His parents came from Sweden but moved to San José, where he was raised.
He is good-looking in the photos he sent me. He has been coming to me several times, but it always happens something. First, his agent forgot to tell him about the test, and he has to go back to the hotel in Norway. Second time the police arrested him at the airport because of drug suspicion in his bag.
He has asked me for money now because he is leaving the platform, and he must pay for his stop because he has resigned his contract. He wants me to send 4500 USD for his transportation to land in Norway. He claims to have a lot of money, but his internet on the oil platform doesn’t work, so he must be in land before he can pay me back.
Often it is not the person the scammer pretends to be that needs help, but his or her invented child.
The industrial engineer who sells and installs industrial dry cleaners
I’ve been talking to someone from a dating site that I wasn’t interested in at first, we were just friends for several months. But now he got a contract on an oil rig. When he got paid, supposedly the UK wanted a percentage of his pay for taxes, but he still had to pay transport for materials he bought.
He didn’t directly ask me at first but eventually asked me if there was any way I could help. To which I said I couldn’t explain that I grew up very poor without meeting anyone to cut my throat to get a dime out of me.
He is still very nice, loving and kind, but I don’t want to waste my time talking to someone that I don’t know if they’re real or not. I can’t find him on Facebook. He said something was wrong with it, and he just deleted it? I’m moving to Cape Coral, Florida, and he says he’s from there.
He says he’s an industrial engineer and sells and installs industrial dry cleaners and dry cleaning machines. His name is Eric Jensen.
The engineer who wants to come home
I have been involved with a Michael Armstrong engineer from the Oil Rig. He sent me a copy of his passport, his BP Oil ID QR code to justify that he is not a scam. He even shared his bank account in Nebraska, and I was able to open it, see the balance, but I can’t withdraw money with his permission because he says he has not touched his account for more than a year since he was at the Rig.
He wants to come home to me, asked me to email BP Oil for permission for him to come home. BP Oil Company wants me to pay $2000.00 worth of Bit coin for him to come home. He even sent me his address in Nebraska.
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