Has someone offered you a huge sum of money or a valuable consignment? It's a 419 or advance fee fraud - find out how they work, and what to do to be safe.
#5316 by aarah Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:20 pm
is there any such thing on earth as a anti-terrorism or money laundering certificate? or are they just silly tools the scammers use to get money out of people to inherit a deceased estate?
Last edited by aarah on Tue Oct 21, 2008 4:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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#5317 by John DeLaney Tue Oct 21, 2008 1:05 am
Hi aarah, welcome to SW.

or are they just silly tools the scammers use to get money out of people to inherit a deceased estate


You have it in a nutshell, By the time the victim is up to this stage of the scam, they will believe anything the scammers tell them, another $20K for an Anti-terrorism certificate, then the payment will proceed? By this time they are usually several thousand $'s out of pocket, this is just one more way to wring all the money the victim has.

I believe that there is some sort of paper trail banks and the USA use to verify that any money is not from illegal activities, but if you look through the picture and certificates orum, you will find all sorts of AT Certificates, none of which will look anything like a real document.

John DeLaney

re:

#5318 by aarah Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:58 am
how do the scammers keep stringing people along if they have already bought one anti-terroism certificate to buy more? is there any such thing in reality that is really valid that people buy for other reasons?

#5321 by Crispy Duck Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:47 am
There's a particularly poor example of one here. There are others in the Fake Documents forum, as John has said, but this is just an example of the lengths the scammers go to. :)

#5322 by Ralph Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:12 am
I will not post them as they contain a scam victims real information but I recieved 3 forms yesterday in regards to a scam

a certificate of inheritance
a HM treasury approval
and the other was called a tax clearance certificate

All 3 are simply more excuses for fees, the vic in question has sent heaps of money, I cant say for sure but it appears to be somewhere in the vicinity of $200,000, most of it borrowed from family and friends, he keeps getting deeper involved because he wants to finalise this business so he can pay back all of the people he borrowed off, to do that he continues to borrow off more people

Scammers will promise that this one more fee will be the last and that they will recieve the money a few days after the fee is paid, after you have sent a large amount of money already what is one more $!,000 fee
#5353 by ChrisSmith Wed Oct 22, 2008 9:05 am
aarah wrote:how do the scammers keep stringing people along if they have already bought one anti-terroism certificate to buy more?


They'll say that that certificate has gone to such and such a department or agency but now a different department requires one and you'll have to pay again. A question as to why you can't simply send a photocopy of the one you've already sent will be met with a "No. They only accept originals" or something like that.

But more often that not, they'll simply move onto a different certificate that they say is required - eg. A customs certificate or an insurance certificate.
Obviously these will "cost" money as well.

The standard of the certificates varies but they're an integral part of the scam and apart from the fees that "barristers", "lawyers" and the like require, they're the other big earner for the scammer in an Inheritance or Money Transfer scam.

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