The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Is the shipment real?

There is someone in Australia who sent me luggage through a certain shipping company. Now they want me to pay $550 before the luggage could leave Fiji. Please help. Is it genuine or they are trying to scam me? They are saying I should deposit $550 to release the shipment.

I hope you've realized by now that this is a scam?

Readers of The Voice will be familiar with this sort of scam because we've reported on it many, many times. The tragic thing about this particular scam is that there's an emotional, sometimes even romantic element to the scam. People are left poorer but also heartbroken, embarrassed and ashamed.

These scams usually start with conversations with a stranger on Facebook or other social media platforms, someone charming and flattering. The targets are almost, but not always women and often women struggling alone with children and with modest incomes. The scammer portrays himself as someone mature, single, not rich but financially stable and always in a country far, far away. The conversations will start as friendly but will very quickly develop into something much more meaningful. Very soon love will be expressed. Plans for the future will be discussed.

Of course this is all a scam. Very soon after the victim has fallen for the scam one of two things will happen. Sometimes both. The first option is that the scammer will claim to have a crisis. Maybe he's had an accident and has been admitted to hospital or has been the victim of a crime and he's lost access to his money. Either way, he'll need money and the victim, who by this stage is in love with the scammer, pays up. The second option is a shipment. As a gesture of his devotion, he'll send a parcel containing new phones, a laptop, jewelry and cash. But, like in your case, there's a shipping problem. A customs official somewhere will apparently stop the goods and demand a fee to release them. However, whatever story is being told, that's what this scam is all about. This "advance fee" is what the scammer is seeking. And if the victim pays, there will just be more and more demands until the victim realizes the terrible truth.

The only solution is to block the messages and move on. And don't believe anything total strangers tell you again.

A scam update

A few weeks ago we reported on another scam where the victim believed she had made over P4 million through Yellow Card. Her relatives all recognized that she was being scammed but they couldn't persuade her to stop paying the scammers money. When we covered it here in The Voice, she'd already paid over P200,000 to them including P90,000 she borrowed from a family member. Despite everything her family and friends told her, she sincerely believed that she only had to make a few more payments before her millions would be released to her.

My advice was to keep trying to persuade her in a non-blaming, loving way but it didn't work.

She kept paying. In the last few weeks she's paid them another P10,000 and it's likely she'll keep paying them until she runs out of money and relatives to borrow from.

I've agreed with the victim's relative that we now must involve law enforcement. We all know that a serious crime is being committed and it's our duty to inform the Police. Just like we'd call the Police if we saw thieves breaking into our neighbor's house, we have a neighborly responsibility to let them know a crime is being committed and we need them to step in. Maybe someone in a uniform will have more luck than we've had?

I know it's easy to be dismissive of this situation and think she's been foolish but imagine it was your Mum or Granny. Wouldn't you want action to be taken to protect her from herself?