Could be, maybe another group of scammers! Just using other's materials! Michael Fergie, Mike Ferguson, Chuck Fergie.............was tracked back to Nigeria, this may not be the same group/or man..........one has to be aware..........
I see a few things in your earlier posts that maybe should be clarified.
.For what it's worth, I noted that when I emailed him it was around 7pm, but when he emailed me back, my email string was there and it showed the time as around 4 pm. That tells me that he is probably on the west coast. His first email to me was at 2 am, I had thought that was odd. I bet this guy is in BC
He most likely is not in BC. I wouldn't rely on the times in the email--there are several very simple reasons why they might be off--it could be as simple as a proxy he is using or simply his computer settings.
The scammer who targeted you is most likely African. It is probably a male who is much younger than his fake character (I have a 47 year old baiting character who will get them very angry, and many will forget they are supposed to be her age—they will start going off about how “old” she is.) There are some women involved in these scams, but the scamming industry in Africa is very male-dominated in general. While every country in the world has scams, the types of scam vary, and this particular scam is most prevalent in Western Africa (Nigeria and Ghana.) There is also a very large cell of Nigerian romance scammers operating out of Malaysia, most who got into the country on student visas. We do see a few from other African countries like Ivory Coast and South Africa, and we do see African romance scammers operating in other parts of the world (UK has become home to some) but these make up a very small percentage of the overall population of scammers using this particular format.
They do more often pretend to be widowers, because it makes them look more stable and romantic. While “car accident” was once the primary story, now it varies more and you will see stories ranging all the way from cancer (very common) to plane crash and a few that go far beyond absurd (one scammer claimed that his ex-wife died “having sex with a black man” due to his “size” --apparently the scammer considered himself “well-endowed” and he thought it was his own private joke.) Some do claim to be divorced—typically when they do, their character is innocent and the wife was the cause of the problems (she cheated with his boss or best friend, abused drugs and alcohol, etc.) Again, it’s because he wants to look the part of the innocent, romantic, stable man with a great future. They usually claim to have children as well, because they find that playing the dedicated father role gets them more money.
Some make up names (and often do it badly) while others just copy random names from the internet—but there’s usually too much significance to the name. A few scammers will actually use the real name of the person whose photos they stole but that’s not extremely common because it’s easier for victims to find them out if they do.
The scenario