Lonely Hearts Scam

So out of the blue this girl from Russia sends you an email via Yahoo Personals. The two of you start corresponding. She sends you her picture... and she's really freakin' hot! Then she says she wants to call you. But she also insists that you give her your mailing address and full name. Why would she need that? So the question is: are you being set up to be scammed? If so, then what's the scam? That's the real-life question facing Johnny over at LiveJournal. I don't know exactly what the scam is, or even if there is one, though it sounds like one to me. Posting under the username 'hornswoggle' I theorized that Johnny could be faced with either some kind of identity theft scam, or the classic Lonely Hearts Scam. In the Lonely Hearts Scam, men are duped into sending gifts and money to beautiful female pen-pals, not realizing that their pen-pals are never who they claim to be. One of the most famous practitioners of this con was Susanna Mildred Hill, a 60-year-old mother of ten who conned hundreds of men out of thousands of dollars during the 1940s by convincing them that she was actually a beautiful young woman in her 20s.

Con Artists Sex/Romance

Posted on Sat Sep 04, 2004


Comments

This is clearly a scam, some variation of the old "sweetheart con." Johnny would be a fool to go along with this.
Posted by Big Gary C  on  Sat Sep 04, 2004  at  06:11 PM
How come we don't get to see her picture?

James
Posted by James R. Rummel  on  Sat Sep 04, 2004  at  11:11 PM
Hey, kinvore, even if it's not a scam, it's a scam. Hate to break it to you, but she lives in Russia. Russia. I may be going out on a limb here, but this is not a story of star-crossed lovers separated by oceans, continents and cultures. She doesn't know you, you don't know her. There will not be love-filled phone calls, passionate e-mails or a tearful union at the airport.

While sometimes I would like to believe in unconditional romantic love with a soul mate who is far away, I'm pretty sure this isn't it. Stop investing your time in this girl and please spend some time on someone:
a) you have a chance with and b) doesn't live THOUSANDS of miles away from you.

This is like me getting all hung up on Karim from Morrocco or wherever. Hot or not (although he wasn't), there is no chance. Though I believe in love I don't think that you have just one chance. This isn't yours. If you can handle not solving the mystery, let it go before you waste the time you could have spent on someone you do have a chance of finding love with.
Posted by chellee  on  Sun Sep 05, 2004  at  12:22 AM
This has nothing to do with the Russian, but is he trying to copy you with his hoaxes page?
Posted by john  on  Mon Sep 06, 2004  at  09:34 AM
John, it's not his hoaxes page. It's the hoaxes community on LiveJournal. It's been around for a while, though it's not that active anymore.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Mon Sep 06, 2004  at  10:50 AM
http://www.about-russian-women.com/album/
Posted by gor  on  Tue Sep 21, 2004  at  03:21 PM
This one was tried on me through Friendster. It was obvious that "She" hadn't read my profile and "her" profile was completely empty. I never followed it up of course.
Posted by Shamus  on  Wed Nov 24, 2004  at  05:33 AM
I was contacted through Friendster by a hot busty 'girl' who even tried to play up to my interests by inviting me to a Yankees game. All just to get me to sign up for some nasty dating/sex personals website.

It's probably not even a person, just some semi-intelligent bot running on a supercomputer somewhere. Sad.
Posted by tenement rock  on  Sun Jul 03, 2005  at  02:30 PM
When I was young and naive I was corrosponding with a woman in Russia. I was learning the language at the time so it helped. She wanted to come over and meet me. I offered to set everything up so all she had to do was go to the airport and get on a plane. Funny thing that she insisted that I had to wire her the funds and she would get the tickets and visa there. She picked the wrong mark, as I have a friend who's mother works at the consulate and gave me everything I needed to get her visitor visa approved as she said she already had a passport. Interestingly enough she stopped talking to me when I told her I would provide tickets, get her visa arranged and provide $100 travelling cash.
Posted by Lounge Lizard  on  Wed Jul 19, 2006  at  10:22 AM
I was contacted by Victoria Utazi, a 24 year old girl. Sh sent me a picture, very pretty. We communicated and she very quickly appeared to be totally in love with me. Ridiculous, she didn't even know what I looked like. I played along with her. She said that her father had deposited 9.7 million dollars in a European bank and she needed a foreign partener to obtain this money. I would get 20%. I let her believe that I had fallen in love with her too. She did ask me for my bank details but I obviously refused to do this. Eventually I got tired of it and I owned up. Afriend posted my details on the website. He was tired of me complaining that I only seem to attract teenagers. I told her that I was actually a Customs investigator and that I was on to her. I was a little worried because she had my email address and my phone number, but the bank confirmed that I had not put myself at any risk so no harm done. But if anyone is contacted by Victoria Utazi beware, She has a tragic story of her parents being murdered by rebels in Rwanda and she is living in a refugee camp in Senegal. Don't be fooled. She has an accomplice in the UK, a Mr Robert Seaman, who she claims is an employee of Barclays Bank who is supposedly the transfer officer for her money. His email address is definitely bogus
Posted by Steve Kavanagh  on  Mon Aug 04, 2008  at  01:00 AM
Sex sells always has always will,
Posted by Beginners Investing  on  Fri Aug 08, 2008  at  01:14 PM
What a scam! When I was at uni this guy pretended he was so in love with me. I fell head over heels and then he nicked off with my credit card and cheque book. I lost a lot of money from that idiot.
Posted by Catherine  on  Wed Aug 13, 2008  at  02:08 AM
I have been contacted by a very pretty girl called Olga Galasheva. Trouble is in her emails she seems very sweet and I have to admit that I chose not to bait her. She said she wanted to join me in the UK, but she needed Lst 390 for her visa. I just told her that I did not send money abroad and I told her about Russian scams.
I am not 100% sure that she was a scammer, but you have to play it safe
Posted by Steve Kavanagh  on  Sat Sep 13, 2008  at  11:32 PM
Hi Steve

I have also been contacted by the pretty Olga Galasheva and after a long correspondance she has asked me for money for visa. I am now wondering when you were you contacted by here, at which site and which city she said she lived in? I sure believe she is a scammer, but it would have been fun to "play" a little more with her. I have a lot of photos of her and her friends and if you have some too, I would love to see them. You can reach me on .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Posted by Roy  on  Wed Dec 17, 2008  at  12:44 PM
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