Catfish Report

[HueyPilotVN]

Now this is certainly off topic and is not a fishing thread.

My son called me about a woman that he met on the Internet. She presents all the classic signs of a Catfish, No phone, Out of state, no address, and asking for money right away.

He has already sent her over $500 for medicine for her sick grandmother.

I talked with him and he agrees with me but he is very impressed by her pictures. She is holding up a sign with his name on it.

So I thought I would subscribe to a service that runs a report on whoever you choose. It is called Ben Verified. I have the service for at least a month till I can cancel it.

She has absolutely no information available under her name and location. She sent him a picture of an old Texas drivers license, but the address comes back as a pizza parlor.

I do not want to cause him too much pain but I have told him not to send her any more money and he agrees.

One reason that I am posting this is because I have the access to run unlimited reports for the next month if anyone needs a background check.

Now, do not swamp me with requests, but if you really need to check out girlfriend/boyfriend, yourself, or other person then email me and I can email back the report. For the report I need First name, Last name, City State and age.

If this post is against the rules then the moderators should just delete it.

 

[Utclmjmpr]

Classic money scam..>>>Dan

 

[ChasA]

Funny coincidence. I just signed up with beenverified today. I'm looking for relatives I've lost track of. I'm not impressed. It seems all the relatives use the same phone number or a couple of variations. I'll be cancelling it tomorrow.
I've never heard the term Catfish. And I would rather check out the girls personally.

 

[SpencerPJ]

I watched a great documentary a couple years ago, their are literally high rise towers downtown in the country of Lebanon that have hundreds of workers operating these scams. The guys interviewed said it is much more profitable than dealing drugs, and much safer. Bill, it's tough to be a parent, but ya gotta convince your son this is a scam, and if they get too much personal info, they can steal his identity and it can really get ugly. Good luck

 

[jackiemac]

You're giving him good advice. I see so many people who are obviously scammers trying to join a Facebook group that I'm a moderator on. So many are suggestive photos that end up being requests to befriend others or sending personal messages.

Tell him not to take it personally, I think they go after as many people as they can. It's very sad.

 

[DonTom]

I talked with him and he agrees with me but he is very impressed by HIS pictures of some good looking gal.

There, I fixed it for you.

-Don- Reno, NV

 

[John From Detroit]

I recall a contact I got from a woman who claimed to live about an hour away.. Well. she sounded a bit..er.. Too perfedt (Exactly what I am looking for in a girlfriend I mean EXACTLY, what are the odds)

Suddenly she's in Germany, been robbed and needs money... Sorry. don't have any to spare just now I'm still in financial recovery (I'm actually recovered and can spare some if I have to) have not heard from her since..... the key thing is after she claimed she'd been robbed she made some statements I know for a fact are not true.

 

[Ex-Calif]

I got approached by a pretty sophisticated phishing attack last week.

I am a member of a classic car club in Ohio and have been living in FL since January. Here's basically what I got.

"Hey Dan, This is (name of club president) and I am traveling on a business trip. The club is buying 5 each $200 visa debit cards to give to (charity name here) from the car show proceeds. The problem is that I am on a business trip and can't get good internet connection.

Please buy 5 each Visa Gift cards, photograph the front and back and send the pictures to me. Please also give me your bank details so the club can automatically reimburse you for the $1,000"

What was compelling was the details about club president name, which made me pause a minute. The email address was (clubpresidentname12345)@XXX.com which was also compelling but not the eMail he uses on the club roster.

Of course the club knows I am in Florida, would never ask a member to outlay money like this, especially a "lower ranking" guy who even when active only attended like every 3rd meeting. On top of that the club president is retired and would never be on "a business trip" - LOL...

All the info in the eMail was readily available on the club's web page. What I don't know is how they got my eMail address.

Be careful out there and do not send any money to anyone you don't actually know and have verified by voice.

 

[Rene T]

This has been going for years and people know it but many still get sucked in.

 

[SpencerPJ]

This has been going for years and people know it but many still get sucked in.

No disrespect, but this kinda stuff has especially been going on with our seniors and especially widowed. This same documentary (I forget name now), but they literally chased obituaries, connect them with widowed Facebook accounts, posed fake pictures and reached out to lonely widows, the amount they took them for was unreal.

 

[SargeW]

Someone has got a hold of my email and I have received 2 emails in the last week telling me that I have won something and I need to click the link to collect the prize. One was spoofed from home depot, that I go to frequently. However scanning the email I noted phrases that used the wrong tenses, and misspelled words.

Never click anything, and if someone wants to give you anything free, it probably a scam.

 

[Lou Schneider]

The Escapees co-op park in Hondo, Tx got hammered by hail and a possible tornado a couple of months ago. Our park president personally called their park president asking how we could help. He suggested purchasing Walmart gift cards they could then distribute to their members to help with their needs.

I went to our local Walmart to get some, and the customer service clerk tried to talk me out of the purchase. She only relented when I was able to convince her I wasn't sending them to some scammer.

 

[Larry N.]

One was spoofed from home depot, that I go to frequently. However scanning the email I noted phrases that used the wrong tenses, and misspelled words.

You probably did, Marty, but that's a good time to check the email header to see where the email ACTUALLY came from -- there are generally good clues there.

 

[IBTripping]

On my Facebook account, I keep getting friend requests from beautiful women. Haven't responded because I assume I'm too good looking for them.

 

[SargeW]

You probably did, Marty, but that's a good time to check the email header to see where the email ACTUALLY came from -- there are generally good clues there.

That was the other dead give away Larry. I deleted the first one, then got another a few days later with a different subject line. They never give up.

 

[Isaac-1]

On this general topic, you say you need name, city, state and age, does this service provide any way to track down someone if you only know the name, maybe city and state of birth and approximate age? I ask because I need to try to track down a somewhat distant relative in order to inform them of an inheritance. If not this service does anyone know of any such similar service that could help?

To keep the story short money on the order of $150,000 has recently became available to the estate of my step father's father, who passed away around 1980, my step father, all his siblings, and all of their spouses except my mother have passed away, we have contact information for the descendants who have ties to the local area here in Louisiana, this includes all except for my step father's sister's kids who grew up in a small town in Kansas who never had many ties to the rest of the family.

 

[Ex-Calif]

@Issac-1 - I am sure that you have your reasons for being on point with this but inheritance law varies by state (as you probably know). For an amount this big and with unknown potential inheritors I would be using an estate attorney. The fee might be worth it to do it right and have no claims come to your mom later.

Good luck with it.

 

[HueyPilotVN]

Isaac,

The search parameters are First Name (required), Middle name (optional), Last Name (required), City (optional), State (optional), Age (optional).

Like with any search, the more data points that you provide the smaller the list of potential correct persons.

Without a city and state, I would think that the search would default to the entire country and give you a large group unless the name is unique.

I have noticed that the data seems to include all the locations that are included in public records for the person. This might find the person based on the inclusion of the place of birth especially if they lived there for some time.

I would be happy to run the search on the data that you can email me. I will only send it to you and will keep it confidential.

It does not cost me anything during this month before I cancel the service.

Edit: I just reread your post. The name of the small town in Kansas might help to narrow the search as well as the approximate age.

 

[Isaac-1]

Bill, thanks I will get with you in the next couple of days once I see if anyone in the local family may know birth dates, etc.

Ex-Calif, there will be a lawyer involved, the issue is that this is a somewhat convoluted mess and almost all the parties with any knowledge of it have died. I only know about it because my step father was the executor of the estate, and had been still trying to get this money released when he died 15 years ago. Without going into too many details there have been recent federal court cases that have resulted in changes to regulations which now allow these funds that were stuck in limbo to be released.

 

[HueyPilotVN]

As I think about this I believe that it might be best to do this with you on the phone as I run the reports. They run very fast and if there are several people identified it might
be productive to weed out the ones that do not seem to be the correct one.

I can also run several variations of the name.

The output goes into a PDF file and is easy to email.

These reports are very comprehensive and every one that I have run has been accurate. Ran one on myself and it showed lots of detail including relatives and neighbors with phone numbers.

I ran one of these years ago and found my half brother. He did not know about me. Resulted in finding the entire family on my natural father's side and a big reunion in Kentucky.