ScamVictimsUnited.com

I am not sure if this was a 419 scam,but I lost $4500 within last two years.I was emailed by a Stephen A. Mackle in 2006.He said he was in a hospital in Abidjan,Cote D'Ivoire.He supposedly had $9.5M,would name me as his beneficiary/partner and brother in Christ. He had me contact a Dr Adama Boko and a Barrister Johnson Boma,whom got me to send a $250 procurement fee. We emailed a few times.I lodged a complaint, I think to the Secret Service,wasn't emailed till Feb. 2007.Where I was told Mackle passed away.I was still the beneficiary/partner,brother in Christ to Mackle.A Kevin Sankoh says he was Mackle nurse,became my contact.Sankoh says he paid part of the fees,they said the fund($9.515M)( $15K added to pay back the amount for the fees,so they say)was sent to my account( I set up another account for this purpose),but a European company stopped it,needed a "Origin of Fund,statutory money laundering declaration clearance certificate",which cost $50,000.Eventually,I was told to send them $2,200,then I ended up sending additional $1,800($4,000), they wanted $10,000 more,I refused because I didn't have it,even requested for my $4,000 returned.Never happened,probably never would've.the $500 is from the $250 from 2006,the other $250 are for Western Union fees.I would like to know if there is an legitimate program that does pay back victims of their loss?I've been trying to win the $10,000 Deal or no deal lucky case game.No luck there even though I have picked the correct case several times now.Shouldn't I atleast been a runner up and got $10k like other runner ups have?

I'm really sorry to hear that. Yes this is a classic 419 advance fee scam. There's always one more fee that needs to be paid until you are out of money or refuse to go along anymore.

No there are no organizations who can get your money back. The reason the scammers use Western Union or Moneygram is because those payments are untraceable. The authorities are not much help either. It's difficult to go after someone in another country and especially in cases like these where the government isn't willing to cooperate with the US authorities. Please do file a report with the Secret Service. Although it won't get your money back, it will add to the statistics. Eventually maybe they will see how big this problem is and prompt the State Department to put pressure on the countries where these scams originate to clean house.

What to watch out for is a follow up scam promising to get your money back. This works just about like the first scam that took your money. They will require fees or money to bribe officials and you will be required to pay that before they can help you. This is known as a recovery scam and since you did loose money to them it's highly probable that you will get hit with offers of this sort also.

Another trick they pull is to claim they finally got the fortune transfered with another partner but are willing to pay you for trying. They'll offer you maybe $200,000 or a percentage of the original $9.5 million. Then of course there comes more unexpected expenses before you can get that.