Trapped in Afghanistan – Please Send Money

It pains me to write this but I feel it is necessary to warn people.  We are starting to see submissions of people claiming to be Marines, soldiers or civilians trapped in Afghanistan – asking for money to help them to be evacuated.  How despicable.

These scams work similarly to the romance scams we often see.  These scammers must be taught the technique at warehouses in Somalia because they all work the same way.  They create a false profile on Facebook or other social media platform.  They snag photos of a real active duty member and put them all into the social media account, usually obscuring the nametag or having a common name such as ‘Brown’ or ‘Rodriguez.’

They claim they are in an odd place – Yemen, Iran… and now Afghanistan.  I don’t know why the odd duty station.  We may or may not have troops in these places, but it is skeptical.  Perhaps there is a ‘covert’ feel to it or perhaps it makes it hard to check and confirm?

They then claim they are widowed and have an 8-12 y/o child.  They exchange PMs or emails and after a while, ask for money to come to the states and meet up, also wanting to see their child.  I suspect they claim widowed status to promote the notion that they stayed in a relationship and tried to make it work until a force of nature intervened.  Sounds better than divorced, I guess.

Being in Somalia or someplace similar, they are beyond the reach of US law enforcement.  If reported to Facebook, they simply shut down the account, create another with a new name, and are back in business.

Now, we are seeing a twist with the current crisis in Afghanistan.  Please send cash to help us get out.  Uh, yeah, sure… we’ll take a credit card.

Here is just part of the exchange of someone claiming to be a Marine in Afghanistan.  He claims that he owes money to a business back home based on someone else scamming him and the debt is now on him.  He stands to lose everything if he doesn’t get back home and pay the debt or straighten it out.

“Please, I know you told me you can’t but I’m pleading with you to help me any way you can honey.”
“I know at least if I know how much you can help me with I will talk with the company and if they could bend their rules to help me.”
“Please [REDACTED], 3 of our men were shot last night.”
“Basically, it’s coming down to us even as the deployment made here the past week, this Taliban are still getting closer to attacking us and only God knows when they will drop a bomb here.”

Since there were no reports of anyone being shot, he’d have to say that the media isn’t reporting it.

Anyway, be on the lookout and be skeptical.

[sarc] Or, open up your wallet and send money – that way you can say you did your part to evacuate Americans out of Afghanistan, even if that money ended up in the pocket of a Somali pirate or Nigerian scammer. [/sarc]

 

Category: None