Scammer from LoveStruck - [email protected]

I joined Lovestruck (HK) in June and a guy called "Phil" approached me. We started emailing on 3 July. His email address is <[email protected]>.

His 1st email to me, on 3 July:

Nice to meet you, I was born to American and Canadian parents, live in Kowloon, HK is like a place to stay for me with easy access to my main target market in China. I relocated a year ago, I own a Small scale logistics business, I am into logistics and warehousing for agricultural supplies. I love to swim, yoga, play tennis and I love cars, I always find time for the occasional spin. I am seeking for a relationship, friendship and a partner for the rest of my life. I have no "kind" I am seeking for a woman with good moral values, a good personality and love for family. Tell me more about you, what do you do for work? What do you do for fun? I think we should take it over to whatsapp for a proper and more spontaneous conversation, send me your whatsapp number, what do you think?

Soon he asked for my whatsapp no., which I gave. His no. +852-6734 7261.

We started whatsapp messaging on 7 July, and have been exchanging messages quite regularly.

On 29 July, he claimed to be flying to Stuttgart/Germany to take care of his business. On 18 Aug he sent the following email, effectively asking for money from me:

Hi Wave
How are you doing today? I could not sleep early as a result of the incident that happened in Stuttgart days ago, I tried not to bring you into my issues but I have no other choice. We encountered a little mishap at the warehouse, the conveyor belt operators failed to join sections of conveyor frame properly which resulted in system crash and also affected the loading terminal. I had to get an engineer to set up a new system and bring in a bigger one for seamless loading of items. I incurred additional costs to get everything back on track and this has impacted my finance and my trip negatively.

After meeting with the freight forwarder in London, we were able to reach an agreement on both containers. The bill of lading forms were provided and all the necessary paperwork were put in place pending when the Basic Ocean Freight is made available. I encountered an issue with the process as a result of my inability to make available to the freight forwarder the total shipment cost which consists of various components: a basic rate, mandatory surcharges and extra services. The ongoing European crisis doesn't help foreign contractors like myself, about 5 to 10 percent of contract value is wiped off as a result of exchange rate instability.

I have to make available to the freight forwarder as well as the haulage company the sum of $215,000.00, I was able to come up with $130,000.00 and an additional $65,000.00 from my financial institution as credit facility. This implies that I still have a balance of $20,000.00. I was able to make available another $14,400.00 with the help of family and friends, leaving me with a balance of about $5,600.00. I have tried to raise this amount but my efforts did not yield any results, I could not get proper sleep because of this disturbing situation. The containers are being loaded at the port of origin, I need to obtain the bill of lading and forward it to the bank as proof of contract fulfillment before the financial institution covering the contract can make the total contract sum available to my company. The bill of lading is a legal document between the shipper and the carrier detailing the type, quantity and destination of the items. The bill of lading also serves as a receipt of shipment when the items is delivered to the predetermined destination.

I am really sorry for involving you in this situation, I had to garner enough courage to inform you about my situation, Please do not be offended with all I have said, I think as a friend I should let you know about my situation and please be civil in your response. I am seeking for a loan to cover for the balance amount, I want to seek your assistance and I pledge to refund the full amount with interest if you so please. I will be able to refund the amount to you by Friday next week. I have never been in this situation before, I had to incur additional cost in setting up a new facility and this affected my budget negatively.
I await your response
Bless you

I'm now suspicious that this guy is a Scammer. I haven't replied to him. I've been using fake name in my contact with him. He doesn't know my real identity and I'm not in a state of worry. However, it's be nice to hear if you have any advice for me, before I reply to him (or not)?

Many thanks!!

Wave

Hello and welcome to Scamwarners,
Your suspicions are correct, you are in contact with a scammer. The story is just a lie to try to convince you to send money to him. This will not be a loan and he will never send money back to you.
The best thing to do now is to block and or ignore him without responding in any manner. Just go silent and let him wonder what went wrong.
If you have any additional questions please ask.

Thank you Mr. Wilson for your quick reply.

Oh God, so glad that I just googled with "LoveStruck HK Scam" to find this post!
Yes THEY, not "He", are scammers. Please see my previous post about these guys.

Same guys, or at least same setting about profile, "his" background and the email about Stuttgart.
Exact copied and paste.

Thanks for posting their new email and phone number.
If you call and if anyone answers then they are using SIM card which anyone can purchase at 7/11 if not the that is a fake phone number created online.
But it looks to me it is for real so it's good that you posted this. - to further prevent from anyone who searches this number for falling victim.

Let me just put their number once again with various format so that any victims-to-be can hit this post when they Googled this number:

+852 6734 7261
+85267347261
+852 67347261


They used different phone number before and one of the avoided-being-a-victim-because-she-saw-my-post person called the number and various Mandarin and Cantonese speaking guys answered telling her "Richard" wasn't there.

But do NOT call, just BLOCK them and do NOT tell them now you know they are scammers - it will only educate them to be better scammers. Pls do NOT tell them they are posted here.

They are a global criminal syndicate operating likely from West Africa such as from Nigeria or Ghana with group operation in HK and some connections with Indonesia and China. - IF they are the same gang as my scammers.

Please also post "his" username in LoveStruck HK and report "him" to LoveStruck HK. They will block this user.
Thank you,

Lara

Btw I left LoveStruck HK long ago but since you are still the member you will probably encounter other scammers. Please post them here. If you become suspicious use Google reverse image to see if the photos are stolen from someone else.

Scammers have "overly committed to relationship" profile but not limited to. I think your scammer(s) wasn't overly committed to begin with, "he" didn't bomber you with love messages. There are "friend" scams too which they don't use romance but use friendship instead.

So at first you may not know whether they are scammers. But if they keep making excuses not to see you but somehow keep you on leash of contact (then months or year later they strike you with scam), or ask money, or ask you to receive some parcel (parcel scam, shipping scam), or any of that sort then they ARE scammers.

If you are not sure please consult here.