In the previous post we discussed how Words with Friends has become a popular platform for romance scams. Romance scammers initiate chat within the app, tell you how lovely you look, before suggesting that you should move to Google Hangouts. This article picks up the scam at this point.

Most people would do the sensible thing and decline the initial advances of the scammer but those who are vulnerable and desperate for love may well just fall into the trap. On Words with Friends, I use my proper account. I mean, I originally set it up to play a game, not to catch scammers, its just worked out that way. When I transfer to Google Hangouts, nothing about me is real, I don’t even use the same name which most scammers don’t even question me about.

If you haven’t previously read my first post regarding Words with Friends scammers, I suggest you do so to put more context around what you are about to read. Throughout this conversation, my name was Chris, a 36 year old single guy who worked in finance in London. Chris is unlucky in love and loves nothing more than a Google Hangouts romance scam.

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The initial pleasantries

To start speaking with the scammer in Google Hangouts, you will need to add them to your Hangout contacts. They will have given you their email address in Words with Friends so this is simple. Most will also ask for your email address so that they can add you. This isn’t necessary as only one side needs to initiate the conversation. The reason they ask for your address is that they have so many scams on the go, it helps them identify who you are. Many times I’ve started the conversation, only to be asked where I got their address from. Hardly the response you’d expect from someone who has just declared their love for you is it?

Most scammers I’ve dealt with have been experienced in making you believe that they are real, normal people during the initial, low key chat. If you aren’t careful, you could let your guard down and be trapped by them. It is important to keep asking them questions about themselves, their town, their timezone, weather, etc. This is key when baiting during the Google Hangouts romance scam. Anything that could trip them up. Asking about their job is usually a good one to start with as it normally forms part of their script.

Most scammers tend to work around the Gulf region. There are numerous reasons for this, one is that most people will be unfamiliar with this area so they have more license to fabricate the truth. Secondly, the timezone of the Gulf region is more in line with their own area so it makes the times that they can scam fit in with their own day.

Geography isn’t really their strong point

You can usually have a bit of fun when asking a scammer about their home life. The scammer I dealt with in this example told me they were from Louisiana, a part of the USA I know absolutely nothing about. Naturally, I asked them about it. The reply I got is shown below.

Scammers ‘response’ to where they live

The response looks very much like a copy and paste job from a third party web site. It is certainly not one you’d expect in normal conversation. Although very subtle, these are the things you need to be looking out for if you think there may be a chance, no matter how slim, that you are talking to a scammer.

Hey, that looks very close to what our scammer told us

A quick Google search of the text seems to confirm our suspicions. We know at this point, the person we are chatting to is not who they say they are (neither are we, but that is for our own security). We can be sure this is a Google Hangouts romance scam.

Us 1 Scammer 0.

We learn that the scammer is from Leesville in Louisiana, again a place I’ve never heard of. I’m curious to learn more about the town so I ask a few questions about it.

Questioning the scammer on their location

Again we get what looks like a Googled response. One question I always ask is “is it near the coast?”. This gets the scammer thinking. Of course, the obvious thing to do would be to open Google Maps before giving their answer. Some are that dumb and wrapped up in their script however, meaning these deviations really do throw them.

Not as near to the coast as we were lead to believe

The scammer seemed to have no desire to use Google Maps but I certainly was going to. The USA is a big country but even then, 2 hours and 100+ miles doesn’t appear to be particularly close to the coast. This information is banked but I don’t reveal anything to the scammer that their story isn’t adding up. I just play along for the time being.

Us 2 Scammer 0.

Learning the ‘identity’ of the scammer

One of the main reasons the scammer wanted us to come to Google Hangouts was so that they could send us some pics. It was time to request to see what the scammer looked like. I knew this wasn’t going to be them at all but it is usually good to have a bit of fun to see who they have ‘borrowed’ photos from. When asked, the scammer was happy to send me a photograph of themselves.

A nice smiley photo, but of who?

As you can see, the photo looks natural, its not a posed glamour shot although sometimes they are. Any unsuspecting person would be quite happy with receiving that photo and wouldn’t even question it. However, a quick Google Image search shows once again that our scammer friend is not actually being 100% honest with us. In fact, they aren’t even being 1% honest.

Our admirer appears to have lots of different aliases

As you can see, the Google image search has returned lots of matches for our photo. Non in the name of Ann Simpson who our scammer claimed to be. In fact ,this shows up that our image appears to be being used my many individuals for different needs. As to who the legitimate owner of the photo is, who knows. One thing is for sure, it isn’t our scammer.

The scammer asks to see a photo of us. I always stall at this time in the hope that they will forget as there is no way they are getting a pic of me. This one was a bit persistent so I ended up giving them a royalty free random one off Google. A bit unethical but it did the trick.

Us 3 Scammer 0

More info about the scammer

We had got 3 quick wins in a short space of time. I wanted to learn more about the scammer so asked some more questions which would be reasonable to ask someone who you had just started chatting to

First l asked how long they had been in Qatar for (which is where they were working)

Not the most fluent of replies

To the untrained eye, that seems a plausible response. Analysing deeper, the grammar isn’t great. I ask if she’s always lived in America to which she replies she has. Throughout the conversation the grammar is not fluent but I never pull her up on this as I know she’s not American and English probably isn’t their first language. Unbeknown to me at the time, the admission of being there for 2 years is also important but we’ll come to this later in the scam.

I continue to ask about the local area and the scammer persists in sending copied and pasted facts about what there is to do. They seem to be a fan of New Orleans which they suggest, we can go to on a night out. They tell me New Orleans is an hour and a half away from where they are allegedly from. Google Maps disagrees however. It is almost 4 and a half hours away. That must be some night out to go to all that effort!!

Not quite the hour and a half we were told

Us 4 Scammers 0.

Arranging to meet the scammer for some romance

Remember the purpose of this scam was all about romance. Although neither side in this case had any inclination to meet, it forms a large part of the script. It had taken probably 3 or 4 days to get to this stage so the bond between the scammer and potential victim has developed significantly and the trust is starting to increase.

It was suggested to me that I go and meet the scammer when they had finished their term in Qatar which was mid December. Of course I agreed and we starting making plans for my visit. Naturally, I wanted to know where I needed to fly to. This is where the fun started and I gradually turned the pressure up on the scammer.

The destination for my flight, Leesville City airport

I was told that I needed to fly to Leesville City airport. A quick check on Google, yes it exists, that’s a start. That wasn’t good enough for me though so I had a look at it via Street View.

Leesville City airport. Not as glamorous as it sounds

Well I’m no aviation expert but I can’t see a trans-Atlantic flight, or even an internal commercial one for that matter landing here. I told our scammer that I couldn’t get a flight from the UK to Leesville direct so needed more information from them. Remember at the start I said to ask as many questions as possible. This is the reason as sooner or later they will trip themselves up.

Again I got some garbled, half copied and pasted, half nonsensical reply. So I am now being told to fly in to New Orleans and then take a local flight to Leesville. Sounds plausible doesn’t it? Wrong!! A quick Google search shows that you can’t go from New Orleans to Leesville, their airport is nothing more than a glorified field remember?

Google Flights confirming New Orleans to Leesville is not a valid route

The closest Airport that you can use from New Orleans is Alexandria. In all of the conversation, Alexandria was never mentioned as a destination by the scammer for the good reason that they didn’t know anything about it.

It was time to put a bit more pressure on. By this stage I was getting frustrated with our scammer and was tempted to blow my cover but I was still interested to see how they were going to try to extort money from me so I resisted the urge.

Classic backtracking from our scammer

Bearing in mind this is someone who allegedly had flown from Leesville to Qatar, they couldn’t even tell me how I should get there. Just reading the exert above shows how unrealistic their scam is, yet people still fall for it.

I was on a roll at this point, getting more angry by the second that this person was blatantly lying and showing no shame at the same time. I continued with the pressing questions in the hope that they would break. Of course, they didn’t. They are trained to be ruthless with the sole intention of forcing decent people to part with their money.

Scammer error – 1 hr 30 has become 4 hr 43

As you can see from the screen grab above, the scammer has tripped themselves up. Earlier in the conversation it was an hour and a half to New Orleans, now they have obviously used Google maps and it has gone up by 3 hours. If ever you needed evidence that this idiot was copying and pasting everything, the fact that is takes approximately 4 hours and 43 minutes would seal the deal. Not 4 and a half hours or 5, but approximately 4 hours 43 minutes. Now that is precise. Even after this error, the scammer seemed oblivious and repeated it again within minutes.

Scammer being a bit too precise

As well as there being no planes directly from New Orleans to Leesville, there are also no trains. At this point the scammer really was having a hard time. I took great delight in pointing this out to them yet still they kept to their script. Although totally dumb, this appeared to be an experienced scammer.

Us 5 Scammer 0.

Although annoyed with the scammer, I was still having fun so I decided to concentrate on their journey from USA to Qatar. It was obvious they had no idea about the route so I knew I’d get some silly reply. They didn’t disappoint

Special direct route on Scammer Airlines

Backing the scammer into a corner

Amazingly, after being quite ruthless with the scammer, they were still of the impression that I really was going to fly out to Leesville to “meet” them. They kept declaring their love for me so I decided to use this to my advantage.

Knowing full well they weren’t who they said they were, I suggested a video chat. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting the response I got. This scammer might be dumb but they deserve 10 out of 10 for imagination.

It’s official, video calls can cause blowouts. Stay safe people!!

So the reason she couldn’t video call me was because it might cause a blowout on the oil rig. Have you every heard anything as ridiculous as this? Even my sarcastic responses seemed to go completely over their head.

I was having fun toying with this idiot so I told them I was going to meet a friend and was going to tell them all about her and how I was going to fly out to meet her. You know, all the things which would set alarm bells ringing with most people.

I knew they wouldn’t want me to discuss any of this with a third party. All scams, whichever kind they are, will only succeed if the victim keeps all info to themselves.

Us 6 Scammer 0.

I then revisited the video call option, just for a laugh knowing full well that they wouldn’t answer. I just wanted to make them feel awkward and on the back foot. Their scam was nearing an end and I wanted to maximise the discomfort for them.

BOOM!!!

Let’s buy a car and then leave the country!!

The key to trapping these scammers is remembering what they have said earlier in the conversation. We got onto the subject of what car they had and it came out that they had a 2018 model Lexus. In isolation, this would be fine but they had told me they had been in Qatar for 2 years. As this conversation took place in October 2019, having a car under 2 years old made no sense at all.

Been in Qatar since 2017 but have a 2018 model car!! How??

When questioned about this faux pas, the scammer said they had arranged to have it delivered to their home while in Qatar. Scammer logic, buy a car, have it sit doing nothing for 2 years and watch the price depreciate. Makes perfect sense doesn’t it.

The Final Scam

If you’ve made it this far, well done. There were times throughout the week and a bit of this scam that I was ready to just reveal and move on but I wanted to see how it would all end. As it turns out, the scammer needed to pay a release fee to get out of their work. Again, another totally unbelievable claim which any straight thinking individual would see straight through.

The final scam takes shape

They make out they cannot afford to make the payment so I, being a helpful guy step in and offer to help out. Interestingly, the scammer says they cannot take payment directly because of security and says that I’ll need to go through an agent. This part of the conversation took place late on Sunday night and the scammer said it would take a short while for the agent to get back to them with the account details in which to deposit the funds. I am unsure but I think they possibly set up a new bank account on the Monday morning specifically for this purpose.

Once the scammer sent me the details through, they contained the name of a person and the account details for a bank in Turkey. I quickly made contact with this bank and passed on the account details but they never acknowledged this information and to this day, I have no idea as to whether they acted on the information or not.

As soon as the information was passed on, it was time to out the scammer.

Game over

As soon as the scammer was confronted, they threatened me with being blocked and then never replied to any further message. I reported this account to Google. Doing this sends the last 10 messages of the conversation with your report so timing is important to ensure you send some incriminating evidence. As with Zynga and the bank, I cannot be certain that Google will deal with this issue but reporting it is absolutely the right thing to do.

Hopefully this rather long post will educate people in how to spot the obvious signs of a scam. Ask plenty of questions and the scammers will trip themselves up eventually.

Game, set and match us!!