I asked permission from my cousin to post her experience here and she approved it so others will benefit, though I know most of you have heard about this kind of frauds many times or even yourself have experienced it before.

So here is the story.

My cousin met this guy with initial TR from UK. He said he works for British Petroleum as Engineer and earn good money. He said he is 39 years old, tall, and medium built. I saw his pictures on fb and I confirmed to my cousin that he is a british guy. They met through facebook and exchanged messages for 2 months. After endless chat and exchanging sweet nothings they become bf and gf. My cousin is a Math secondary teacher but she is not into internet activities that much so she wasn't aware what was going on. She is single and very keen to find true love. She trusted this guy since he is very sweet and kind. So to make the story short, The guy said he is coming over to Phils in Dec 2011 to meet my cousin personally and to meet her family as well. He said he will have to go to Malaysia first to sign whatsoever contract for his job. So he contacted my cousin from malaysia 3 days before his flight to Phils. She asked me If I could accompany her during his 1 week visit and I agree. My cousin was very excited to finally see him in person. We left early to NAIA to pick him up. Then unfortunately something came up. His flight from Malaysia was 7.30am, my cousin was surprised why he rang her at 8am telling her he missed his flight and that his plane left already. He said he lost his baggage and everything at the airport and that only his passport and phone was left then he asked my cousin If she could send him $400 to buy another ticket and he will pay her back once landed in Phils. After she told me that I had a sense something was not right and I was very suspicious its a scam. He rang again after 30 mins saying he is still waiting for my cousin to send the money through WU but my cousin told him she don't have that money then he said maybe $200 should be okay as he really need it asap. I was like LOL bargain? then he even said $100 should be okay. When he rang again I talked to him and LOL he didn't sound like British at all cos I know how british accent sounds like as I lived in UK for 6 months and my husband is a british. I was on the phone with him and listening to all his dilemma at the airport. I'm pretty sure he is from Nigeria or India with odd accent. So in the end I told my cousin to never send any penny cos he is not real and its a scam. The photos on fb he claimed were him turned out to be stolen photos of a real British guy. In truth, TR (I have no idea of their real identity) was merely a scam artist whose goal was to eventually draw money from innocent women like my cousin. My cousin was actually very lucky she didn't send any money or gave personal information about herself.

Basically It was too good to be true and If my cousin didn't tell me about this guy then she would have sent him the $400 he needed. We have to be very careful with people we meet online, to avoid love-frauds consider searching about their real identity first and meet personally before moving to a relationship. My last word to my cousin was, “Stay strong – someone will eventually come that will be honest and not wanting to play with your feelings.”