We've all had the emails from a Nigerian fraudster who urge you for help in their time of need, with promises of great wealth to follow if you reply. Most of us know they are scams and consign them to junk, but unfortunately a new wave of romance scammers seems to be enticing victims with promises of love rather than money.

It seems to many of us are now aware of the many email scams originating from Nigeria, and other parts of Africa, where there is promise of huge wealth tied up in a dead relatives estate, which just needs the help of someone in the west and their bank details to be unlocked. No-one falls for that old trick any more.

So instead, Nigerian scam merchants are going after lonely hearts amongst the population, and promising love and romance rather than wealth and presents.

The Sydney Morning Herald has reported how hundreds, if not thousands of Australians have already fallen victim to the con, and handed over thousands of dollars to there would be lovers.

"In the latest case, Gold Coast resident Patricia lost $8500 when she became involved with a fraudster posing as an Australian retiree using the name "David"."

"After six months developing what Patricia believed to be a loving relationship, David said he had to travel to Nigeria to sell some land, which he promised would set them up for life. While there, he supposedly got mugged and asked Patricia to send money to help him return home."

And this isn't a rare occurrence either, with Queensland police thinking thousands of people all across Australia are being targeted, and falling for the scam, which is just another way or extorting money from people's bank accounts.

The initial contact is made by email, but then the hoaxers spend an inordinate amount of time and effort concocting fake identities, and building online romances before then springing the trap and asking for money from their victim.

Anti-fraud officers are already working with Nigerian police to try and catch the criminals involved, but for victims like Patricia, it is too late to learn the lesson.

This won't just be occurring in Australia either, with people likely to be targeted around the world by these promises of love and devotion. So if you happen to get an email from someone offering you romance out of the blue, do yourself a favour, and delete the thing without replying.

If you want to get a taste for the types of scam perpetrated by these criminals, then you can read up on many such failed attempts at 419 Eater, a website dedicated to reversing the tables on these con merchants.

Entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 10:53 am under Strange, Making money.  Print This Post