ScamVictimsUnited.com

I posted this last night on RomanceScam.com, and I'm posting it here too because the more we know the stronger and safer we are:
Michael (San Francisco, CA) was a "highly compatible match" on eHarmony.com He initially wanted to FastTrack, but at my request went through the Guided Communication steps. We quickly moved to Open Communication and he instructed me to chat on Yahoo. Soon he was deeply in love with me and wanted to be with me forever. He said his first wife of 17 years had deceived him by having abortions and was subsequently unable to have children. Being devoutly Roman Catholic this deeply distressed him. Prior to their divorce he states he found her with a lover in their matrimonial home. He repeatedly said he terribly misses his father who died when he was 8 years old, and dearly loves his dog Jack an Anatolian Shepherd as well as his mother a retired pharmacist living in Milan Italy. He doesn't like to talk on the phone because he has shame for his strong accent, having grown up in Rome, although he was born and lived in Miami Florida the hometown of his American father until his father died and Michael and his mother returned to her home in Northern Italy, and he returned to the United States at the age of 22 to further his education. He states that he is a building engineer in San Francisco, but travels the world doing projects on a contract basis in major cities especially in Europe. He used many darling and dear words in his messages and within days referred to me as his wife. He was traveling to West Africa (presumably for the first time) to do a project for a gold mine which would take 4 weeks and for which he would be paid in "golds and coals" which he said he would definately be bringing back to the state because he already had clients lined up to buy them -- seemed a bit odd for a building engineer to me, but I'm just the poor sap who lived on his every word and breathed the intoxicating romance of his every message -- I even signed up for classes to convert to Roman Catholic so that we could get married in his church for the love of God!
Then when he presumably arrived in Africa he messaged me that his luggage was lost. The following day he messaged that it was being held in customs for special scanning due to terrorist alert in the area. He begged for money saying that even his laptop and cell phone were in his luggage. He offered to pay me back with interest if I would just loan him funds until Friday when he assured me his luggage would be returned to him and that there were huge traveler's checks in his luggage. He stated that the hotel manager had kindly loaned him a pc so that he could contact me, and would receive a moneygram for him if I would just please send $1500 to
Fullname: John Alfred
City: Ikeja
State: Lagos
Country: Nigeria
Text question: who loves you?
answer: Michael

This chat was right after I returned home from my first Catholic mass where I pledged not only my devotion to God, but my eternal love for Michael and willingness to give up everything in my life just to be with him.
Since then I have checked the IP addresses in the headers of his few emails -- the one supposedly from his own laptop at his home in San Francisco was identical to one from the presumed hotel manager's pc in Nigeria.
A google search on his given name was not revealing, but search on his username mich122841 was lucrative.
He was listed on many mingle2 websites throughout the state of Washington targeting senior women. He also used the same name and some additional photos on the sugar daddy website MutualArrangements. Today I filed an official complaint with the http://www.ic3.gov that I was referred to by the FBI.
I am including photos that he posted on eHarmony and mingle2, but I wasn't able to copy the two additional ones from MutualArrangements though they are obviously of the same person.
He gave his phone number as: 1-415-349-5534 14153495534
He gave his email address as: mich122841@yahoo.com
He gave his Yahoo chat ID as: mich122841
He did not include any requests for money in his emails, only in his chats, but when he asked for money I copied the entire chat line by line copy and pasted into MS Word and saved the document.

This is quoted from his profile on mingle2 for seniors in Seattle
About mich122841 Interests: I enjoy cooking, reading, listening to music and taking a long walks with my dog
I am a hard working single guy with a real sense of humor who loves to have fun but greatly appreciates and cherishes quiet intimated moments. I’d love to get to know you. I like to communicate and I really enjoy listening. I am the kind of man who works at living his dreams. Cruising to or visiting colorful places is one of my passions!! (I have several) I love to enjoy life and I am interested in expanding my experiences. I am interested in finding a future friend, confidant, and partner who: is loving, caring, honest, has high integrity, loyal, thoughtful, considerate, compassionate, spiritual, romantic, healthy, funny, has a good sense of humor, is good listener, is an excellent communicator, is intelligent, giving, knows how to live in the moment, enjoys life, and is happy. I hope I’ve peaked your interest and I look forward sharing some time with you.
Profession: Civil Engineer

Here is an example of his emails:

Subject (GoodMorning My darling wife) My Visions Of You!!!!
From Michael Griffin <mich122841@yahoo.com>
Date Tuesday, July 28, 2009 11:04 pm

Received from [68.142.237.88] by n3.bullet.mail.re3.yahoo.com with NNFMP; Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:04:01 +0000
Received from [67.195.9.82] by t4.bullet.re3.yahoo.com with NNFMP; Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:04:01 +0000
Received from [67.195.9.108] by t2.bullet.mail.gq1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:04:01 +0000
Received from [127.0.0.1] by omp112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:04:01 +0000
Received (qmail 11827 invoked by uid 60001); Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:04:01 +0000
Received from [41.219.197.13] by web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:04:00 -0700 (PDT)
Date Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:04:00 -0700 (PDT)
Message-id <168737.11592.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
MIME-version 1.0
X-Mailer YahooMailClassic/6.0.19 YahooMailWebService/0.7.338.1
Content-type multipart/alternative; boundary="0-1946007928-1248858240=:11592"
DKIM-Signature v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1248858241; bh=2U4/XH4QCtpHDgrFVRE4zdD6iujaLP8sLkD5GsRNLuo=; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=NoXu8sxttnB5Ky04h+EdRgI8hnJImwHVGNOQyZK4T6guLXYSAU5tHiefhl4nbDQHRwEXmraU
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X-Yahoo-Newman-Property ymail-3
X-Yahoo-Newman-Id 386179.52589.bm@omp112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com
X-YMail-OSG a2gyMtQVM1mBqWfT6zu3iWRLOOdZ70vTdQBIZbllrEIkqIwkyh.J4BKShJAw2pHLSEu_CTiENrn
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X-PMX-Version 5.5.7.378829, Antispam-Engine: 2.7.2.376379, Antispam-Data: 2009.7.29.85116

Hi My Love,

How was I to know that you were watching me sleep? I awoke to see you laying there and just then, you smiled and said hi and that just melted me. I wish with all of my heart that I could wake to your beautiful eyes for the rest of my life..

I hated to leave but as I have told you, I left a big part of me with you. It is yours now so take care and tread lightly. I wish that I could be with you and hold you closely to myself now but I want you to know that I am there in spirit and am praying for everything to work out between us. You're the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with and I believe your heart and mine are forever ONE.

Last night, in my dreams, I saw you on the pier. The wind was blowing through your hair, and your eyes held the fading sunlight. I was speechless as I watched you leaning against the rail. You are beautiful, I thought as I saw you, a vision that I could never find in anyone else. I slowly began to walk toward you, and when you finally turned to me, I noticed that others had been watching you as well. "Do you know her?" they asked me in jealous whispers, and as you smiled at me I simply answered with the truth, "Better than I know myself."

I stop when I reach you and I take you in my arms. I long for this moment more than any other. It is what I live for, and when you return my embrace, I give myself over to this moment, at peace once again. I raise my hand and gently touch your cheek and you tilt your head and close your eyes. My hands are hard and your skin is soft, and I wonder for a moment if you'll pull back, but of course, you don't. I know that this is the moment I have been waiting for, and I pray that the moment never ends.

Love always,

Michael

Thank you for posting this info here also. You are right . . . education is the key to fighting these scams, so the more we know the better we can protect ourselves . . . and the more places you have this info listed, the more changes it will come up in a google search and that could save someone else!

My Michael Griffin was on PlentyofFish.com. He actually sent 3 dozen red roses and chocolates even a teddy bear for my granddaughter for her birthday. A fruit basket. He was a zoologist/archeologist and traveled extensively. He had a daughter named Katie who went to school in Cyprus. He was a widow since his wife died when Katie was 5 years old. He even had "Katie" and I communicating. Red flags were flying --- in her 1st email she called me Mom. She got into an accident and he had to fly to Cyprus to be with her. It is a long drawn out story --- anyway the REAL Michael Griffin in TX (He claimed to be from Houston, TX) was also on PlentyofFish.com I made Michael give me an address and he gave me one to send a Thank you card to...I called the number attached to the address - it was Mike Griffin --- he was wondering what the thank you card was for.

This scam is very well thought out and if you are less cynical than I am --- People would fall for it. I am glad I did not. He stroked my ego for almost 2 months. But I kept pulling back...Thank goodness I am the cynic that I am.

He asked for $1500 for "Katie's" surgery...the day after I discovered his scam he emailed me to tell me Katie died because of my selfishness. This Michael has a hotmail account. The pictures of him are not the same. Different story - same name....

Michael Griffin is targeting women in Australia now he uses the profile FlourishMicky67 on Plentyoffish.com. claiming to be native american. Then when you drill him about his race he has a spanish mother and american indian father who are both no longer alive.
He did contact me and we had been chatting and spoke on the phone once and I was very suspicious so trusted my instinct on this after he started professing his love and telling me about a dream he had. Exactly the same dream word for word as posted on here about standing on the pier. Thankfully i had pushed back all the time with him telling him to back off. His story was he is in australia working at the zoo on contract. I also questioned him about where he lives as he is listed as Dawes Point, very few people live at Dawes Point and most people dont know where it is. It often comes up as a default address for Sydney. He stuck to his guns that he lived in Dawes Point. Anyway he told me his daughter is 19 and studying at EMU in Turkey. I looked up EMU and it does exist but just doesn't teach any of the courses he mentioned and also that it's web site is malicious. He then told me he was leaving Australia within the next couple of weeks but would be coming back for me! RED LIGHTS had been flashing all the way on this one from the start. Thank Goodness I didn't fall for his story.
His hotmail account is micgriffin@hotmail.com
Really glad i took this a little further and googled his name and found this thread! I do hope no one gets caught by this scammer.