Sgt. Mark Shelly in Malaysia

[Ms Afterlife]

I have been netdaiting a Sgt Mark Shelly for three months. It has been a daily contact normally by phone, email, facebook or msn. I was supposed to come to me in Sweden, but needed money for his leave, sp they could find another officer from US to replace him. He has been in Iraq, then Kuwait and since a few weeks Malaysia (?). His phonenumber is a malaysian. I have been responding with a Agent Frank Kirk (US Army Transit Departemt), [email protected]. Does even that deparment exist. I received documents with stamps and dates. Processing officer is Eric H. Holder and Certifying officer Sgt Fisher Donald. Mark Shelly does not speak broken english. he says he is born in Florida (been given me a fully address there) and that he is grown up in MN. I was asked to pay a large sum to following accound:

Account Name: Valvania Enterprise
Account Number: 08180000764053
Swift Code: CIBBMYKL
Bank Name : CIMB Bank
Bank Address: Jelapang Ipoh Malaysia.

Even if Im totally heartbroken and are falling apart (he even use to speak on the phone with my children) I do wanna know the truth. Please help me!

[Frank Bishop]

Welcome to Scamwarners.

it is 100% a scam, we have seen this time and time again. The bank account provided is used for scamming purposes, and we will report it for you. I'm happy you did not send him any money, I recommend that you cease all contact with this pathetic scammer.

[cutelilly]

This is very suspicious (I would say 100% scam). It resembles a classic romance scam.

Red flags:
1. US Army personnel will not use free email providers
2. Military leaves are not bought, they are free of charge and granted on other bases
3. You have been introduced other characters from military, requesting a "replacement fee"

Those documents you received may be easily forged.

Please exercise extreme caution.
As he has your real life details, please drop contacts with him.

[Bubbles]

Welcome to ScamWarners Ms Afterlife and as indicated above, this is a scam. Military personnel should NOT be asking anyone to send money to anyone else for them. They can get into big trouble for doing that. They are supposed to be in the full time employ of the country they are serving and they do not have time to be chatting. There job is to do what their commanders tell them to do, not seek out a romance.

Please post up the email address and chat ID they are using to try to get you to send money. That is all they want from you. Just your money. There is no romance, just further heart ache, heart break and lost money.

As cutelilly said, just stop communicating with him. Don't tell him we discussed him here. Don't confront him, just disappear and leave him wondering.

You may have to block him, but do what it takes to quit talking to him in any way. He will only try to convince you to send him money. I am sorry to be so blunt. It is necessary in this kind of situation.

[Ms Afterlife]

Notice all, that this man doesn´t speak broken english at all. His american english is exellent both verbal and written. As a Swede, not having English as my mother tounghe, he even kindly use to correct me. I didn´t doubt for a second where he came from... How can a Nigerian man speak English with such accent so well??

[cutelilly]

Even if Nigeria is home of about 90% of 419 scammers (there are some 300000 perpetrators worldwide, of which 268000 are in Nigeria according to 419hell.com citing Ultrascan data), there are scammers everywhere in the world (estimated 6000 in the USA). Sometimes they operate as an organized group, so it is possible that an American scammer is responsible for contacting you (by phone or email), while his accomplices abroad (and Malaysia is home to many 419 scammers) are responsible of taking/processing the money victims send them.

What you have described has already many definite signs of scam, so here we advise to drop contacts. Moreover please remember that law enforcement are not willing to put great effort (as they have to cooperate with LEA from other jurisdictions, if you send money in Malaysia) to retrieve some say $5000 (albeit significant to the victim, this is a ridiculously tiny amount for an international police activity).

[began steele]

While we loosely describe scammers as "village bois in internet cafe", this is also not exactly true. An efficient gang boss wil have his own private IT centre and pay staff to run it. The staff may get good commission. He could well have IT experts on hand 24 hours a day and run the show as a criminal business. Some staff will be very well educated to higher degree level and speak Engllish properly and fluently. It is the dosh that counts.
If you can also publish the forgeries/ pics it would help and Admin staff can advise you over this

[Justin]

Scammers are everywhere but our experience tells us the vast majority operate or are originally from West African. Malaysia in particular is well know to be the home of many Nigerian scanners who may be attending university and scamming. It may be difficult for someone who does not speak English as a first language to recognize the difference between an American English accent and a West African English accent.

One thing is certain for all the reasons previously mentioned this is 100% a scam. Sorry to hear the scammer targeted you but glad you found the site before getting more involved.

[began steele]

Dear Ms Afterlife.
With some luck the scam account will have been shut down by now. I hope you are not contacting the scammer any more. However the scammer may find out his account is no longer available and will have worked at setting up another one. This means he will have to inform his potential victims of a new account arrangement, and in that event we will like to know it so we can shut that down as well. If he has contacted you do not respond back and ensure we have the details