Latest Scam Alert -- Escorts Beware

[TampaYankee]

Just received from escort/dancer MattCums....

Hi webmaster,

I received a suspicious email from a "client" offering me an enormous amount of money to do a trip to london ($2000 a day for a week). He offered me the world but then asked that I pay his "travel agent" half the plane fare before he would send me half the money. He asked for my bank account number to transfer the "funds" once I sent his travel agent the money.

I can forward you all the emails from this scammer. He said his name is Andrew Smith and he saw me on your site, but of course my review is negative so why would he contact me for such a huge date?

This person is obviously going down the list of escorts hoping to entice them with a huge jackpot date and rip them off of several hundred dollars. He asked me for $700 to pay to his travel agent before he would wire me any money. Said the travel agent was Judahtravels@yahoo.com and his email is smithandrew009@yahoo.com

Please warn your escorts of this scam. Very convincing emails, except for the email from the "travel agent" who obviously was foreign and could barely write english. Let me know if you want me to forward you the emails. He also insisted that we chat on AIM, and when we chatted on AIM it was obviously to trick me into giving my bank account number and fooling me into sending the fake travel agent money.

Matt Cums SF

P.S.

Here is the laughable email from his "travel agent"

DEAR SIR

MY NAME IS JOHN MIKE......MR SMITH ANDREW IS A GOOD FRIEND OF OUR COMPANY WE HELPED HIM WITH HIS VISA TO COME IN HERE TO LONDON ENGLAND WE WILL HELP YOU WITH THE PLANE TICKET, ALL WE NEED FROM YOU IS YOUR NAME,MAILING ADDRESS.TRAVEL DATE AND LEAVE.THE ROUND TRIP TICKET OF ECONOMY FIRST CLASS ATTRACT A FEE OF $1200.WE ACCEPT PAYMENT VIA WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER.REPLY ME BACK ASAP SO WE CAN START WORK ON THE PROCESSING.

HOPE TO HEAR BACK FROM YOU

JOHN MIKE

JUDAH TRAVELS

[JKane]

Yep, this schemer is indeed using MER's front page reviews to target escorts. John Tyler, who I just introduced (and highly recommend) got the same $2000/day for a week, 50% to be deposited ahead of time to come to London offer. Despite being new to this he was wary, and I added these concerns based on what he told me of the offer:

This was your first review and it had only one vague picture, as far as MER shows your review is from a first-time reviewer (so possibly yourself), these rates would secure a well established escort with dozens or reviews or a porn star, people sometimes try to take advantage of escorts--especially new ones, wealthy people aren't wealthy long if they're in the habit of paying extravagantly for things, there does not seem to be a shortage of young vers. escorts in London, and it just generally strikes me as too good to be true.

I don't think John had bothered to pursue it far enough to get the BS about paying for half the ticket via Western Union. Judah Travels... so obviously a scam.

[Guest Anton]

Hi All,

Sometimes there are a few things that make you instantly (!) recognise that an email is from a scammer.

One of them is that the scammer doesn't start with the escort's name like in this case. The reason is simple, if a personalised emal has to be sent to (i.e.) 100 escorts, that's a lot more work compared to sending the same email (starting with something like "Hi there,") to the same amount of escorts.

Another thing is that the scammer doesn't mention the city of the escort. Often I get emails where the scammer writes something like "I will be soon coming to your state". And then I think, LOL, I'm not in any state. :-)

So far ALL real clients started their emails to me with my working name (i.e. Hi Anton), and they ALWAYS wrote they were coming to Amsterdam in their first email.

Then there's the intonation of the email. The scammers are always very polite and sometimes even diplomatic, while the emails from real clients are much more casual, sometimes even in the sense of, "Hey, I'm horny, you're sexy, I want to hook up with you".

I hope this helps.

Warmest, Anton/Amsterdam.

mobile : +31 6 4II7 3343

website : http://www.gayescortamsterdam.com/

[Guest SimplyKurt]

I'll also confirm this. Exact same setup/person; however, prior to this incarnation, I was also approached by the same person (different name/email) and/or cartel with similar propositions. Using my magical powers of computer nerdiness, it appears all emails were sent through yahoo, and they all originated from the exact same Nigerian IP address. Nigeria. Go figure. I guess the myriad of financially-irresponsible "Nigerian princes" are now looking for help from us male escorts.

Some common features of my interactions with them:

* They suck at grammar, yet frequently claim to be from countries where even a 4th grader could write more coherent sentences. One said he was from Arkansas, another from Great Britain. Both originated from the same Nigerian IP address.

* They tend to capitalize Things that Shouldn't be capitalized in English Sentences, like Nouns, but sometimes forget to capitalize "I" when referring to themselves.

* Sometimes forgets spacing after punctuation marks.Like this,this,and this.

* They like to use ellipses at the end of sentences......Like this......Instead of periods, ellipses..Usually the lengths are longer or shorter than normal ellipses, too (i.e., > 3 or 4 dots or simply 2).

* The sentences are choppy.

* Their phone numbers look like Great Britain numbers, but as far as I know the format/area codes are wrong. Perhaps they're banking on an escort in the USA not calling it because of overseas long distance? Maybe they just pull it directly out of their asses? Dunno.

* Will eventually find a way of asking for personal info (e.g., saying he's preparing a cashier's check, wanting to wire money, or sending half up front).

* Offered to send pics once. I never saw what picture he was planning on sending, though, but I'm fairly confident it would have been lifted from another source and therefore would not be the actual scammer. Seeing the common features above, though, I simply demanded a "saluted" pic. That is, I asked the person to take a picture of himself holding a card with his email address on it; or, alternatively, doing something silly and atypical that I designated (e.g., touching your nose with your thumb while sticking your tongue out). Needless to say, he didn't comply.

Hope that helps you guys.

Cheers =)

[TampaYankee]

Just had an escort report to me that scammers are afoot againg using our email facility to attempt to scam escorts with crazy offers. They usually promise an engagement with a prepayment check if only the escort will return the excess cash by return check. Of course the original check bounces and the escort is out the amount of excess $ he refunded. There are numerous variations to this scheme.

Remember if is sounds a bit off or just too good to be true it usually is. Use common sense and don't trust anyone that asks you to send money, no matter what the cirumstances.

[Lucky]

Hey, hey cynics! I'm going on a luxury Nigerian safari this summer which an admirer is buying for me after reading my posts. Sure, I had to put down a deposit, just to make sure I show up. Then he will refund it at the end of the trip. If I had been as cynical as you guys, I would have missed out on this opportunity of a lifetime.

[seaboy4hire]

I'm not sure how well it would work but it must do some good since it is still in use at Ticket Master and CL but just before the transaction is complete or posting is posted on both sites one must type in a series of numbers, letters or characters or all three. I think that this site should do the same thing for people who send emails through the escorts profile. Yeah it sucks is a bit of a pain in the ass but I have gotten a few of these emails from people looking at my profile here and frankly it's irritating and a waste of time.