Scammed! I got scammed. After all that talk and all my precautions, I fell for one, hook, line and sinker. It cost me $2100! I’m not going to lie, I feel very foolish, but that one wasn’t the only one that has crossed my path and there are more springing out of Covid than you can imagine and they are coming at you unexpectedly.

I’m sharing my story so that others will stay alert. PLEASE BE CAREFUL! NO ONE IS IMMUNE, unless they are living in a bubble.

I was being held up and I didn’t even know it.

Scam #1

One guy, I’ll call London, actually I’m going to give you his name, because in case he comes your way, you’ll know to be on guard. Tony William Andersen, supposedly from London.

He convinced me to buy game cards, because he was unable to get his funds from America from the company he worked for. There were a million reasons why and if I innumerate them on paper, I realize how ridiculous it sounds and how stupid I was.

First of all, when he realized I would not succumb to “romance” he introduced me to his 6 year old grandson, who he’d been caring for and had cancer. He would send pictures of this little guy sitting on the couch watching Spongebob Squarepants. He told me he had told “Owen” that I was a nice lady and Owen was saving a spot on the sofa for me to watch his favorite cartoon. Yeah, he was who I fell in love with. After some time, the little guy had to go in to the hospital and so the money was needed soon.

I responded with, how can a hospital not treat without upfront money? Yeah, I asked the question. But, I still caved.

We were dosey doeing funds from my credit cards to game cards to send him. the “company” out of Texas, paid my credit cards, so I was okay with it. So, it wasn’t like I wasn’t being reimbursed. Fortunately, I caught on.

Actually it was a couple of friends who spotted the scam and basically ordered me to stop. They questioned the legality of it to begin with, which I’d not considered.

Well, as soon as I stopped the process, the payments to my credit card was rescinded and I was now over extended. Ouch!!!

Scam #2

This one absolutely terrified me.

I got a call from a woman who said she was with Interpol. She was very pleasant but serious and said, I had wired money to someone in Nigeria, who was funding illegal arms and that the Nigeria government had 20 pages of indictment on me and they were interceding on my behalf.

I had wired money to a friend of my son’s who had loaned him money earlier and he was wanting to pay him back.

So, of course, I wanted to “yell” at my son, but she insisted I could not share what was going on with anyone (gag order).

I had invested in a bitcoin company I learned about through my son and apparently his friend in Nigeria who also had a connection, so of course, I questioned all of it and became terrified that I’d inadvertently gotten in over my head. So, guess what? I told them about it.

They insisted I couldn’t talk about what was going on, so they asked me about the company and how to access the account. They tapped into the account and said that all my electronics were being “tapped”.

They wanted me to pay for the withdrawal fee, so they could track the process and see where it originated from in order to round up these guys. Supposedly the guy from Nigeria was the ring leader. They gave me the name and information of their “undercover” site for the funds to be rerouted to, which I entered

What was scary is that it looked like they had already submitted for the funds, which made it more convincing that I was “tapped”. Fortunately, the amount I sent was insufficient and I was tapped out and couldn’t pay the difference.

After a week of being terrorized and pressured and being in tears everyday thinking that to talk about it would result in my arrest because of the so-called “gag” order I couldn’t break and the fear that any minute law enforcement would tear down my door, I did what I was told. I couldn’t take it and “broke” the order and finally talked to my son and did yell at him and told him he’d been scammed.

He said “No mom”. THEY are the scam! What did you tell them?” “Block them!”

It took me some time to get the nerve to do so, but I did finally talk to my son and another friend, all agreeing I’d been duped. The next day, there was an article in AARP about just that thing, government agencies that you are fearful of and can be threatening to begin with and under their watch dog perusal. I finally braved it and went on the Interpol site and it states quite clearly, that no one from Interpol will ever call you. Period.

I blocked them and no one broke down my door. The thing is, the lady I was speaking with sounded so nice and I know this may seem hard to believe, but I actually wanted to die, I got so distraught. I cried for days, but I said nothing to anyone. When I told her this, she totally backed off and tried to be my friend and say she’s working on how to get me out of this jam and that she knows I’m “an innocent in all this, please don’t harm yourself! Give me some time, please”.

As it turns out, my funds remained safe, however two weeks later when I went to withdraw, these people were still in the system and tried to beat me to it, but the company contacted me, noticing the IP address to be different than mine. I had to resend and prove I was me all over again. They said, these guys were out of Manchester, England. (England again) Fortunately, I had told them earlier of what had transpired with “Interpol” so they were aware, which is why they noticed the IP address trying to intercept the withdrawal. It caused a delay because they had to relocate my funds, close the breach and reconfigure the system before any funds could be released. Crazy huh?

That’s my story.

Like I said, I’ve been writing about this and yet, I still fell prey. Keep in mind, that as money gets tighter and people become more desperate and technology becomes more mainstream and innovative, it pays to be even more cautious. These folks know how to tug at your heartstrings (as in my case a different type of “romance” scheme, being sensitive to a child’s plight).

PLEASE BE WARNED!!