Another Military scammer

I'm in Australia and have been contacted by a man who I believe to be a scammer. He sent me 2 photo's of himself in a U.S. Army uniform with his surname on the shirt, but said he had no others. His claim is that he is a widow with two children and he is serving in Afghanistan. I became suspious of him due to his poor spelling and grammar and also saying he loved me after chatting on yahoo for 20 minutes.
I asked my real army friends on what questions I would need to ask him to find him out, and sure enough he was fake. The type of weapon he uses, where he was meant to have done his basic training, his duties in Afghanistan and the fact people have to pay to have their phone numbers added to the "satelite" to be able to connect with that number, thought the fee is "refundable". He refused to allow me to hear his voice after claiming his accent is a mix of Australian and American. Apparently he was born in Sydney Australia, but moved to Texas when he was 12yrs old. He also refused to give me a postal address to send a postcard.
This guy never asked me for money because I found his name connected to a different scamming site. His claim is the woman who posted his name was bitter after being rejected by him when he found out she was planning to marry another soldier in his camp. What are the chances of that??
Anyway, my concern is for the people he is scamming and for the man who's photo and surname he is using.
I still have his email address and the photo's he sent to me.
Regards

Victory

Welcome Victory,

I have split this into its own topic so we can hopefully get a profile on this scammer.

You are describing a textbook military scammer scenario. As you suggested, getting his info up may help prevent him from scamming others.

Can you post some more info about him, especially?
-name/email he is using
-photographs used (we can help you with this if needed)
-some of his emails, especially early ones as those will be scripted? Including full headers for one may help us to get a general location too.

Right from the start I was sure this guy was not a real army guy. So I asked a lot of questions and played along to get as much info out of him as possible.
He told me his full name is Edward John Butierrez, but goes by the name Eddie. His date of birth is 2nd June 1976. He says he's a widow, whose wife died from cancer shortly after the birth of his daughter. His daughter Rose is 3yrs old and son Jason is 6yrs old. I can give you more info about his family if you like.
His email address is [email protected]. He first made contact with me on a site called my yearbook. This the first message he sent to me. It's quite long and I figured he wasn't real. That's why I replied to him and continued to talk to him for a couple days to get as much information as I could.
Let me introduce myself with a quick little note. I am a straight, single professional male that is 5’9”tall, weigh about 180lbs, with black hair and brown eyes. I am d/d free, respect all boundaries and limits. I am a professional Sgt. with the usa army corp. in Afganistan and have a great career name for myself. I am secure with who I am and like when others know what they want and where they want to go. I like other out door activities such as gardening/ farming, hiking and snowmobiling when am not in a war zone area....lol... I have hiked some of the White Mountains and App trail. I like doing various things outside in nature as well as spending a night on the town or having dinner and catching a show also hunter the talibans. I love to travel and have been all over the world and the US thanks to the military.I love the weekend get away to a B&B or a long Sunday drive in the fall. I lived in connecticut for about 14 years,then Texas for almost now and moved back into the connecticut recently. But that is a long story. I am free most nights and also weekends. I like several indoor activities like cooking, reading, snuggling in front of the fire with a glass of wine on a snowy afternoon. I am more than willing to chat further on what you are looking for and what I am, if you are interested please email me. If not, then I thank you for your time.My id on yahoo is eddiebutierrez @ yahoo.com if you care to chat and meet your prince charming?
How would I post his photo's on here?

If this hasn't been bought up. A suggestion if your wanting to validate an American Service member, is the installations locator service. I believe all you need is their rank, location and who they are assigned to. They'll give you their contact information.

How would I go about contacting them?
Thanks

It is quite easy to do this but I hesitate to post details as it's unfair for any soldier on active service to get involved in something that some scammer is stirring up and has nothing to do with him. He will have enough on his mind.

However, the fact that is that it's easy for you to call him and doesn't require him to have any expensive satellite or cell phones purchased for him to receive your call.

Simply ask him to contact you via his '@us.army.mil' e-mail address, and double check that he can receive any mail you send him, just in case he has 'spoofed' the address. The 'domain' must be exactly '@us.army.mil' with no additions, omissions, spaces or punctuation. If he can receive a mail you send to him using that 'domain' then he's in the military - no doubt. Tell him something special you've never told him before, then ask him by phone what it was. If he starts making excuses - he's a fake. If he offers you mail from any other domain then he's a fake and a scammer.

My friend in the U.S. Army told me if he was the real deal, this Eddie person would give me his AKO email address. I had asked for it, but he refused. He does not exist in the U.S. Army at all and I have reported him on my yearbook as a scammer/ID theft. The first email he sent me went to my spam folder, which really confirmed that my feelings was right and he was fake. This is the email he sent me. Note the repeated sentences. Like it was cut and pasted together. I made some things in bold to show major errors in what he wrote.

hello dear,i hope you are doing fine as i m fine over today..i m glad to write you and to even tell you more about my self..I love to cook and create a pleasant, loving home environment. I believe you should treat others the way you would like to be treated, and that actions speak louder than words. I believe that physical attraction is not very important to begin a relationship. With that being said, let me tell you more about what I am hoping to find. I am looking for a long-term relationship and if all goes well…marriage. I am frisky, very playful and very sensuous. I love to please my woman and I enjoy doing things to make her happy, such as dressing for her or cooking his favorite dinner. I love children, outdoors, the seasons, holidays and life itself. I enjoy long talks, walking hand in hand, and lots of loving’.I love children, outdoors, the seasons, holidays and life itself. I enjoy long talks, walking hand in hand, and lots of lovin’. I like to discuss what we both would like to do with our time together, as I feel it should be something we both enjoy. My friends and family would describe me as reliable, a team player, fun to be with, honest, loyal, loving, caring, able to share and compromise. I don't play games, if I give you my heart; I expect you’ll know how to treat it. I love the beach, lying in front of an open fire, making love and holding each other till we fall asleep. I will be looking forward to hear back from you..take care of your self..

I have a number of friends in different branches of the military in four different countries. NONE of them talk like this guy.

This is the second email he sent me the day after we first chatted. Talk about freaked out by him...

i am good thank you for asking..i hope your doing goo and well..i m just been busy today..i missed you and i love you..

Another thing is when I didn't act like he was the most important thing ever...say "I love you" to him or just act excited by his "promises", he would make out he might want to meet someone else. He also made out I had too many friends and wanted to know if I tell the army friends about him. When I told him I told my friend in the Marine Corp about him, he seemed desperate to know what I told him and what my friend said in return. I sent him. He sent this as a reply to me stringing him along. I wanted to get more info from him to hopefully expose him for a fraud and alert others to him.

Hello my sweetheart..i m glad to write you today..i m very happy and glad to read your email..you are such a wonderful lady..well honey i want you to know that i dont lie or cheat as well...i m very honest and faithful and i promise you that i will love you forever till death do us part,.i will never let you down or makes you cry..i will be glad to have you as my wife and the mother of my children and i promise to take good care of you with all my power and strenght..may God help me to fulfill or my promises..I LOVE YOU SO MUCH...

Note again the poor spelling and grammar. I had asked him if he spoke another language other than english, but he denied it. I really hope this helps other women out there to pick up on this kind of person. Even my friends in the army wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. But in the end, they agreed he's a scammer.

each installation has a different locator service, if you have what post he is assigned to you can look them up, the US Army site may be able to help
the general service is at
http://www.defense.gov/faq/pis/PC04MLTR.html

even if there is a service with that name and rank still check with the person in question

Hi

This is the same guy I've been scammed by (see my posts in Help ! Is this a Scam and Personal Accounts). I had exactly the same email:

Hello my sweetheart..i m glad to write you today..i m very happy and glad to read your email..you are such a wonderful lady..well honey i want you to know that i dont lie or cheat as well...i m very honest and faithful and i promise you that i will love you forever till death do us part,.i will never let you down or makes you cry..i will be glad to have you as my wife and the mother of my children and i promise to take good care of you with all my power and strenght..may God help me to fulfill or my promises..I LOVE YOU SO MUCH...

Unbelieveable - a truly international scum bag !!! Let me know if you want to compare stories !

Mandi

Thank you all for contributing this information. I've moved this thread from the News and Announcements forum here to the romance scams forum.

Hey guys, I found this scammer on my yearbook again! He used the same photo he sent to me. But this time he was under the name Eddie Gutierrez aged 44. I immediately reported him and he's been deleted. He is also on a site called Shtyle.fm. under the name Eddie Butierrez. I'm going to report him once I can join the site. But it's taking some time to do it. This is the link if you want to see what this guy does.

http://www.shtyle.fm/profile.do?userid=21697832

I also told my yearbook that there are other Eddie or Edward Gutierrez/Butierrez profiles that are empty and possibly there for him to use when his current profile is reported.

I would love to share stories. This guy was obvious right from the start to me. As I'm friends with military from four different countries. He didn't talk or act like an American or he was a soldier. A few questions later over a couple days and he became the sucker...

Just an update for this Eddie Butierrez scammer. He just made contact with me again today via yahoo messenger. He requested to know what sites he was reported to and when I refused he made multiple threats to kill me and my family.

Eddie Butierrez appears to be offline and will receive your messages after signing in.

You currently appear offline to Eddie Butierrez.

Eddie Butierrez: hello tou there
Eddie Butierrez: cool
Eddie Butierrez: i got all you have done to my name
Eddie Butierrez: can you give me a link so that i can see my self to where you have posted me
Eddie Butierrez: give me one site out of it
Eddie Butierrez: give it to me lemme see
Eddie Butierrez: teach me
Eddie Butierrez: are you there
Eddie Butierrez: i will kill you for what you did
Eddie Butierrez: i swear
Eddie Butierrez: i promise you..i will take your life
Eddie Butierrez: watch your back
Eddie Butierrez: ok
Eddie Butierrez: i m now in aus
Eddie Butierrez: i m here coz of your life and i will take it
Eddie Butierrez: till then
Eddie Butierrez: i swear to God i will kill you
Eddie Butierrez: dont worry
Eddie Butierrez: i will tell you i m a professional
Eddie Butierrez: ok
Eddie Butierrez: your father is a looser
Eddie Butierrez: your mother is a looser
Eddie Butierrez: all your family is a looser
Eddie Butierrez: i will kill all of you
Eddie Butierrez: i promise you.i will take your life
Eddie Butierrez: i dont have much to say just beeen counting your days on heart
Eddie Butierrez: ok
Last message received on 18/10 at 12:08 AM


I removed my replies. But you can see that he is very angry as I guess women are becoming more aware of scammers like him.

Hello My name is Laura and I just want to know if this is a scam as well. here is the letter I got and I want to know if the address and names are real and that is what and where it supposed to go and do. I need to know if this man is real and that I can still have high hopes in us. so will you please let me know. I was asked to aslo write his CO to ask for R&R (leave) and I just dont know about it. I know about the Marines but not the Army. this is the Lt. Col. email address:[email protected]
Can you help me plz... thanks job161410

FROM DESK OF LT. COL ROBERT.
LEAVE PERMIT PROCESSING DEPARTMENT.
93rd AVENUE, ABRAHAM DAVE,
WASHINGTON D.C. WA,
UNITED STATE.
LEAVE REQUEST NOTIFICATION

THIS OFFICE WILL LIKE TO NOTIFY YOU THAT WE RECEIVED SGT. LEAVE REQUEST AND IT HAS BEEN APPROVED

WE ARE HAPPY TO TREAT YOUR MESSAGE BUT DUE TO A MILITARY PROTOCOL, THE LEAVE REQUEST FORM WILL BE COMPLETED CORRECTLY IN BLOCK LETTERS AND YOU CAN FIND IT AS ATTACHED DOCUMENT ALONG WITH THIS THIS MESSAGE. ONCE THIS FORM HAS BEEN COMPLETED A PROCESSING FEE HAS TO BE PAID ALONG WITH THE FORM COMPLETED AND SENT TO OUR U.S OFFICE WHILE THE PROCESSING FEE OF $580.00 USD WILL BE SENT TO THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE BELOW ADDRESS:

NAME : ANTOINETTTE LOTTIE
STATE : NEW YORK
COUNTRY : UNITED STATES.

ONCE WE CONFIRM THE RECEIPT OF THE PAYMENT A MESSAGE WILL REACH THE SAID OFFICER AND HIS FLIGHT SCHEDULE WILL BE SENT TO THE COMMANDANT IN-CHARGE TO ANY DESTINATION, THE SAID OFFICER WILL BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE CAMP IMMEDIATELY.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTION TO ASK, PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT ME
WE LOOK FORWARD TO WORK ON YOUR RESPONSE.
WE ARE SORRY FOR THE MIX UP WHATSOEVER .THERE IS NO ADJUSTMENT ON THE PROCESSING FEE.

REGARDS,

LT. COL. ROBERT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sign up for a free military email account @ MilitaryMailbox.us today!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, I didn't even have to get past the address to know it is a scam. That is not a legitimate US address.

The letter, unfortunately, is 100% scammer fiction. The English is typical African--it was not written by an American.

But most importantly:
-Only a soldier can request leave for himself, or his commanding officers under specific circumstances. People from outside the military cannot request leave for soldiers--EVER. The fake forms and "policies" that you may have received only exist in the scammers' fantasy land--they are passed from scammer to scammer and used again and again, and the moment they come up, you can be 100% certain it is a scam.
-Leave is EARNED, not paid for. There are no fees to be paid to get leave. The second someone tells you that there are, again, it is an absolute certainty that you are dealing with a scammer.
-The US military does not transact business by Western Union or Moneygram.

This is true of ALL branches of the US military.
The sad reality is that more than 75% of the dating profiles you see today for American soldiers are fakes created by scammers. That number is even higher if the person claims to be in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Updated to add--can you post information about this fake soldier, including some of his emails (preferably with headers) so that others can avoid falling for the scam? Just remove your information first.