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Online Marriage Scams

Protect yourself from email scams that come with a simple proposal: Marry me and I’ll make you a millionaire! (Or more likely I’ll just steal your money instead.)

Miriam Kalia (scam alert)

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Please share this scam alert with your friends on social media.

The message below is a typical example of a romance/marriage/friendship scam. A woman (it’s always a woman) that you’ve never heard of before tells you she likes you and wants to make friends with you. Maybe she wants to send you pictures. In the example below, you can even see how these messages are generated from a template, because somewhere along the way the scammer forgot to enter the name of a website, and so the scam message has a placeholder for a “(site)” to be entered later. Poor Miriam needs to practice her scamming skills!

Date: Tue, 31 May 2016
From: miriam kalia otheunholy@yahoo.com
Reply-To: miriam kalia miriam4kalia@hotmail.com
Subject: HELLO

Hello how is everything with you, I picked interest on you after going through your profile at (site) I really want to have a good friendship with you. Beside i have something very vital to disclose to you, but I found it difficult to express myself in this site, since it’s a public site. Please i will like you to contact me, through my private e-mail via: (miriam4kalia@hotmail.com) So we can get to know each other better, and i will give you my pictures and also tell you more about me OK. Yours Friend, Miriam.

Here at the Scam Hunter (scamhunter.org) we document scam messages like the one above in order to help people around the world stay safe from online frauds and scams. Please share our scam alerts with your friends and coworkers today.

Helen Collins (marriage scam)

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Marriage scams are as old as money scams. (Or are they the same thing?) “Helen Collins” might like to marry you — if you are marriage minded, serious, and trustworthy. She’ll even relocate from South Africa or Great Britain to join you! Of course this would depend upon you sending her some money (a point she forgot to mention), and then once your money is in her pocket … poof! … no more “Helen Collins.”

from Helen hc9755_helen@rediffmail.com
reply-to hc9755@rediffmail.com
date Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 5:49 PM
subject Love from Helen

Hello
How are you today? I hope you are fine. My name Helen Collins, 32 years from South Africa, presently living in United Kingdom. I am sincere, considerate, honest, responsible, supportive, open minded, thoughtful, understanding and confident. I am a woman with good nature,I am seeking for articulate man, marriage minded, who is serious, trustworthy, and willing to pursue a serious relation.I’m looking for someone very special to share my life with. I’m looking for my Soulmate & best friend, someone I can share all of life’s experiences with, good & bad, side by side.

I need a honest, caring, understanding, good listener, goal oreinted who knows what he wants and knows how to have fun in life.I am looking forward to hear from you,and hope we can find a great future together. I am willing to visit the man of my desire in what ever location he may be. I am willing to relocate to my man if he wants me to. I need a man who will take me up the skies and give me all the love i need. Please write back to me with a copy of your pics and i will give more details and my pics for you and i to get acquinted in good time.

Thank you for your time and remain blessed.

Love from,
Helen Collins

Wanita Efua Wants to be Your Friend (Scam Alert)

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Random email messages from people you don’t know but who want to be your friend (or even want to marry you) should always be regarded with suspicion. This is a typical example. What’s the motivation?

In general such messages are a form of advance fee fraud — the sender will initiate a correspondence, and then ask to visit, but can’t afford a plane ticket. When you send the money for the ticket she vanishes (it’s almost always a she) and is never heard from again. Note also that the “from” and “reply-to” addresses differ: that’s often (not always, but often) the hallmark of a scam.

from: Wanita Efua (wanita1efua@yahoo.com)
reply-to: wanita5efua@yahoo.com
date: Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 4:48 PM
subject: hi

Hello How are you doing today?I hope every thing is under control ,? if so thanks be to God almighty who made it so ,My name is wanita. I come across your profiel and address in this site [deleted] i personaly became interested in being your friend even more than that ,but as time gose on we will know better , though we can not meet face to face for the moment ,but all is the same . I want you reply me now so that i can send you my pictures and tell you more about myself okay Hoping to talk to you soon ,have a nice day and ramain Bless. Regards, wanita

Here at the Scam Hunter website (scamhunter.org) we document scam messages like the one above in order to help people stay safe from online frauds and scams.

Scammers depend on public ignorance to keep their scams alive. Please share our scam alerts with your friends, family, and coworkers today.