I’m so sorry to hear about your experience and saddened that you have given up on men .. for the time being. There are plenty of good men out there looking for a nice woman to pamper but sometimes we do pick the duds.

The good news is now you are no longer trying to find a man you will probably find that a nice guy comes looking for you. Someone that is happy being single is often far more attractive than someone desperate to be in love.

Unfortunately people who have crisis after crisis are often simply looking for sympathy and attention. Of course we all have a run of bad luck sometimes but I’m sure we’ve all met someone who tells stories just to be the centre of attention and these people are best avoided.

You can try using a reverse image search engine but to be honest it’s very difficult to find out where the picture originated. It could be a previous victim or it could just be pictures stolen from the internet (social networking site, blog, newspaper article, etc).

I’m really pleased you did the research before you got sucked in, well done. It does leave you feeling a little frustrated when you can’t warn innocent ‘victims’ but I’m afraid with the nature of the internet all you can do is protect No.1 and hope everyone else can take care of themselves.

You should always be wary of anyone you meet online who has an endless run of bad luck. Unless you meet someone face to face then its better not to let yourself get emotionally involved, even as friends.

I have not become a victim of the scam per se (i.e., I did not loose any cash). I guess, I grew suspicios right at the time they moved on to the stage preceding requests for money. And so I decided to research a bit more on whether contact info I was provided with legit or not. Once that issue cleared negatively, and British phone numbers turned out to be related to forwarding services that reroute calls from UK to Africa, I got and idea of whom I had been dealing with and knew what I was going to do. So when I was approached with request to lend some money, I let him have it out of both barrels.

But do you have any idea on how to identify and warn the gentleman on the picture that was sent to me for scam purposes? I feel sorry for poor guy. Not sure if it will change anything for him or not, but at least it will make him aware of what his picture is being used for, and perhaps he could take some steps to warn dating sides or something…
Thanks!

I’ll be honest, I have looked at the Acai berry sites and was tempted to give it a try. It was only because I am so used to online scams that before I buy anything online now I google what I am looking for plus the word scam (Acai berry+scam) and read the results, has saved me a fortune over the last couple of years because I am naturally gullable.

I also run a weight loss related site and I had gathered a list of over 500 different websites that were posing as fake blogs trying to get people to sign up for free trials of Acai berry and Colon Cleanser products.

Nothing really surprises me online anymore. Thanks for posting about the scammers, I’m sure you’ve saved a few people from being taken for a lot of money.

Steve
Steve@Pay Off Credit Card Debt´s last blog ..The 3 Best Reasons To Use Cash

Have sent as many details as i can to you on the ontact form.

Thanks,
Heidi

Oh dear Ghana again.

Not sure if the US army operates the same way the Brit army does but I can assure you that when you do get R&R (rest and recuperation period) from a war zone you are not allowed to jet around the world meeting girl/boyfriends. Even if you have finished your tour in the war zone you would be flown back to your country and released from there to go where you like.

Unfortunately these scams often work because of the average persons lack of knowledge of the workings of the military, hence people fall for the “they won’t pay me until I get back stateside”, I need to pay for a military satalite phone or hey yeah I’ll just jump on a plane from a war zone to visit you … sorry it just doesnt work that way.

What does he claim he was doing flying in to Ghana? It is about 3,500 miles and a 7 hour flight from Iraq to Ghana, then a further 4,500 miles and about 6 hours flying (total 13 hours and 8,000 miles) .. compare that to a direct flight Iraq to SA of just 4,600 miles and 9 hours. I could understand if he was changing flights in Egypt or Ethiopia but Ghana??!!

Not a surprise he has a lot of photo’s and very hard to check out, you will probably find that Philip Miller was a former victim of a dating scammer to whom he sent photos. If you have sent photo’s of yourself to this person then I’m afraid your photo’s will probably be used in a future scam, along with your name and nationality. This is probably why there are captions on the photos and he will not answer questions about them.

Scammers operate by taking your information and using it to earn the trust of their next victim. That victims details are then used on a future victim, etc, etc.

I’m afraid there is little you can do to protect the real Philip Miller, his details are now out there. If you are sure he is a scammer (I have little doubt he is) then please take time to google “report dating scammer” and leave his details so other potential victims searching for his name may get advanced warning.

If you are not totally sure he is a scammer please use the contact form at the top of this blog and give me as much detail as you can (contact details as well as information he has given you about him) and I will see if I can find anything out about him.

Sally