What to do next and what to expect
The people in the pictures are not part of the scam. They too are victims of this crime.
It may or may not help for you to understand a little about the industry.
The majority of these scammers are in West Africa. Some work for huge organised crime groups, some small local groups and some are starting out on their own. This industry is decades old and has got severely out of control since the inception of social media and online platforms.
Finding the individuals behind each scam is almost an impossibility. In rare circumstances they themselves come clean and show themselves but that’s mainly to try and further a scam in another manner.
These are known as Follow Up and Recovery Scams .
Follow up scams can come in the form of the scammer pretending they have fallen in love with you as themselves and now wanting to carry on the relationship, or as friends. The motive often to keep receiving help, gifts or even a visa.
Recovery scams may be with social media profiles presenting as other victims wanting to help you out with a contact in the authorities, some actually pretending to be authorities such as FBI or Interpol, and some investigation firms or Bitcoin recovery accounts. The reality is that no one can get your money back, only on very rare occasions the real authorities and they will never be contacting you in that manner and they would never ask for a fee to start the investigation. Specialist firms and sometimes police in the U.K. may be able to recover money from Banks. If circumstances fall within the parameters, some victims in the UK may be entitled to a refund under the CRM (Contingent Reimbursement Model).
Scammers collect phone numbers for anywhere in the world from other victims and other scams, apps and temporary number websites are used to verify apps or dating profiles. There are posts on my pages about this (Number Nonsense).
REPORTING
It is always worth reporting because on occasion, when enough evidence is collected from several victims around a particular group, authorities can potentially do something. All reports help to create data packages for future investigations. Otherwise, the cost of investigating each case far out ways the loss because it’s out of jurisdiction. ALL reported data helps to build a truer picture of this crime. We need to remove the dark/hidden numbers. Find help with reporting in your country here. If there is not a link for you, please get in touch and I will aim to find you one.
The scammers DO KEEP details of victims and they will come back with new numbers, emails or identities. If they are too much of a problem it might be worth getting numbers or any other form of contact they had with you changed. They may also sell your information on to other criminals.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need further help.
Disclaimer: Not everyone in West Africa is a scammer. Many good and hard working people there, are also targets and utterly condemn what these scammers do.