I too was about to be scammed out of $300 (as a start) by someone who called himself Mike Smith. He finally told me he was in Nigeria and needed $300 to pay for a plane fare to come home to Kennesaw, Ga. and that he would repay me when he got here. He would not give me an address of where in Kennesaw he lived and told me that when I picked him up at the airport, he would lead me to his house. He did all the same things these scammers apparently do by writing these truly mushy e-mails and calling you all these sweet names, then wanting you to text them on their cell phones, set up Yahoo IM and so on.
I was very lucky to realize he was a scam because he would never answer my questions about himself and kept postponing the date when he was supposed to be arriving back to the states. I think the biggest giveaway was that he was in Africa and wouldn't say exactly where and then asked me to send him some money when he was supposed to be in the construction business. When I asked him why he needed to be there doing that kind of work, he said he traveled all over the world. My children were here at my house when all of this was taking place (when he asked me to send him money via Western Union and gave me someone else's name to send it to).
He told me to send the money to
ADEYEMI ADEOLU,
17 TOKUNBO ALI STR,
IKEJA, LAGOS, NIGERIA, 23401.
Then he changd his mind and wanted me to use a Western Union Outlet and didn't want my son to know about this. I have our entire conversation from the Yahoo Instant Messenger printed out for my records. The picture he sent to me of what was supposed to be a picture of him was someone who looked too good to be true - much younger than the 55 years old he said he was, he appeared to be about 35 - 40 - and probably a male model. Of course, he said he would "fund" it to me when he came back home. Unfortunately, I did give him my home address because he wanted to send me flowers, which he did and his note was so sweet.
Like I said , just too good to be true. So now I have to delete all these things from my cell phone and computer but at least I didn't send him any money. I almost called the FBI but was told they are aware of this scam and so is the Nigerian government. So if anyone else has been writing to a guy call smith_mike50@yahoo.com just know he's a real fake. He actually called my cell phone and his accent was anything but English - more like a Nigerian or other African accent and I could barely understand him. I have copies of all of his e-mails to me just in case I needed them. My son has helped me by going online and finding out more about these scams and I will make sure "Mike Smith" never contacts me again. It's just a shame they prey on hardworking, honest women looking for some nice man to spend time with and somewhere down the road, maybe marry!!
