Victim Identification 101

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Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 4:44 am

For the benefit of newer members (and some confused ones). This is a quick guide on how to identify (and deal with) victims.

This is a victim ([vik-tim])

She could by your mum, your gran or the lovely old lady who lives down the block that gives sweets to all the neighbourhood kids.

She wants some money to supplement her meagre pension and buy presents for her family at Christmas, so she gets a "Work at Home" job sending cheques to people or receiving client funds for the nice company with the flashy website.

She needs to be eductated and have her mistake explained to her.

This is a naughty man ([naw-tee] [man])

He (hopefully) isn't your dad or your grandad and he doesn't give sweets to kids (unless he is a very naughty man).

He wants money for a new 66" plasma or some crack and is too lazy to get a real job, so he steals it from other people.

He needs to be locked up for a very long time and enjoy intimate relations with a man called Bubba.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

Thank you.

They don't have to all be like the nice old lady above - some are desperate, others merely lonely, or even greedy and opportunistic...sometimes they are even just utter, arrogant jerks.

Most of us would stop a person from stepping out in front of a moving vehicle, regardless whom they may be.

I apply that same theory towards targets of AFF.

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 5:15 am

Tsnerd wrote:

regardless whom they may be.

I'd make an exception for Bieber - he'd get a little shove in the right direction.

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 5:57 am

Down below this you'll see in my sig lines I work with Senior Net here. I have been involved with them for nearly 4 years now, I give workshops/discussion groups/information to the members as and when required about scams in general, and how to recognise them.

So far several of the people that have B&B's, motels here have been targeted by the "wedding party" and "conferernce" emails, with cheques sent over the amount and the rest to be sent via WU to the "florist" etc/

All standard stuff once you know about it, but that isn't why I'm writing this.

Victim recognition 101

One of the Senior Net members has a husband who suffered a stroke 3 years ago, he's 83, and has recovered extremely well, apart from an inablility to say "No" when people ask him to help financially. At one stage he had agreed to over $2,000 per month in Bank transfers for Greenpeace/Save the Children/UNICEF/ and others, all solicited over the phone without his wife being aware till she found the bank statements he had hidden.

She was called away from home about 2 months ago for a family matter, which took about 5 weeks to sort out. When she returned, the Bank had several messages for her to call them urgently.

While she was away, he had been contacted by snail mail with a Spanish Lottery Winner announcement.

They own a farm, and both of them are still working it, but now their equity in the farm has been reduced by $280,000 that he has sent by WU to presumably Nigeria. He has been using their bank to transfer via WU, the lads opened a WU account for him, which we have managed to get closed. This was not easy, as all we had was his log in, not the original account openers name or log in.

I got this dumped on me at last months SN Meeting. We have managed to change their phone number and have had it restricted and made private. Her husband has been declared mentally incompetent, which is not an easy thing to achieve, as he is otherwise fully capable of showing he is alert, competent in all matters other than finances.

We have had all the bank accounts changed to his wifes name, and he is unable to access any of the accounts, raise a mortgage or borrow against the farm.

We have managed to convince the Post Office here to hold all their mail for her to pick up, no further deliveries, they live in a Rural Delivery area, as do most of us here, so that has been relatively easy to do once we were able to show what was happening.

From talking to the Post Office staff, I found 4 other people here that were also being targeted, and have approached and warned them about this as well.

Next is to get an article in the local paper to broadcast as widely as possible.

Victims come in all shapes and sizes.

*** BANNED *** Joined: 26 Jul 2012 Posts: 1116

B8er wrote:

This is a naughty man ([naw-tee] [man])

Interesting choice of picture B8er. Laughing

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