Internet Dating Scam From Morocco
Complaint 185772 Details

I met this girl from an internet dating site (mehndi.com) in mid January 2010. We've been talking over the phone and exchanging emails for almost three years now. However, even though we did speak with each other, she never skyped me with the video on. We were exchanging photos with each other shared emotions. She was very smart enough to send this beautiful pictures of hear which looked very realistic and beautiful. She always kept saying she doesn't have a web came to let me see her other than the pictures. Then in 2010 I sent here a laptop with a built-in webcam, but when she received it she said the web came wasn't working. I was told several times that she would get it fixed by a technician which never happened.

The story is that when we first met she said her father had died from an accident year ago in 2009 and she has only her mum and two little brothers living in Safi Morocco. Then as the time went by she said her mum decided to move to Casablanca in search of a job. Once they moved she requested me to send her some money (50,000 MAD) to rent a small house in Casablanca for 3 years (they called it "arahath" or something where after end of the contract you get your money back). I finally sent her this money. Then she kept usual talks with me every now and then (about her studies, about her family and things about their culture etc). I was later on told that her mum was working in a factory in Casablanca. Likewise, few months passed by and she said (known as Imane Zaze)that she wanted to complete her diploma in Casablanca as she moved to a different city, and for that she need some money to pay for her school. It was 10,000 MAD (MAD or Moroccan Dirham is the currency type used in Morocco) and I agreed to send it via Western Union and finally I did. She appreciated me a lot for that over the phone and email kept saying all these love fairy stories(I love you so much, I need you, you are my big love etc). Later on she said her mum wasn't getting enough money and asked me if I can send a little money whenever she needed to pay for electricity and buy some food which I also kept doing for more than two year. One day in 2011, suddenly her mum became sick and I was told that her mum needed to under go an operation as told by the doctors. I paid another 10,000 MAD for the operation. Her mum came home after couple of weeks in hospital. Few days later she suddenly called me and said her mum had again become sick and she is in hospital. But this time she did not ask any money but after this her mum ended up in a wheel chair. Now she requested to send her little bit more as she needs to buy medicine for her mum and take care of her. I did send bit extra whenever I sent money to her via Western Union. After few weeks when I called she was crying so heavily but could not talk. Then I received an email from her cousin (under her email address - I can provide to you this email on request) that her mum died.

Before her mum died, she said in Casablanca there are lot of bad "mans" ( she was referring to men as mans) in Casablanca and two men in a bike was following her every day from school to home. Every day she kept complaining about this and she said "I feel so scared this bad "mans" will do something bad to me". You wouldn't believe the way she cried, the way she talked I never though this was a fake thing. Then she requested me to help her to change her school and house which cost me another around 30,000 MAD as the previous school refused to refund the money of 10,000 MAD and 20,000 MAD extra had to payed for renting the new house. She said she tried several times with her mum talking to the principal of the previous school to refund the money because of this reason but it was refused.

As I mentioned earlier, I sent money to her for food, clothes, electricity etc. Every month I kept sending her about 2000 MAD for her expenses. One day I requested her to work saying I can't send you any more money as don't have a full time job. She then said ok I will find one. She said she was going out every day, walking everywhere but could not find a job. Then she said her neighbor was doing a clothing business and she can join with her if we can give her 10,000 MAD. Then she started doing business with her for few weeks (during that few weeks I did not send her anything). After couple of month she suddenly disappeared and I didn't get any respond via an email or a call. Then her cousin requested me to come online for a chat (she was typing french where I used Google translator to convert them to English) and when I came online she said Imane had an accident and she needed to get an operation done to her leg. When her cousin told me this I started to fight with her cousin. However, at the end of the day I ended up paying 10,000 MAD for her operation as well. Like wise she had 3 accidents within last 3 years where she stole 10,000 MAD each and extra approx. 30,000 MAD in total for her medicine etc. The last accident she had was in Safi (she decided to come to safi after her mum's death) which made her to be in a coma for a week. Till then she had these terrible headaches and underwent several operation which cost me approx. 50,000 MAD for scanning, operations and medicines etc.

You know the story why she decided to come to Safi is very interesting. When her mum died I told her that she must find a job as it was hard for me to send her money every time (I was studying at the time and working part time). Then she said her aunt (her mother's sister) found her a job in a supermarket in Casablanca. She was working fine there for a while and then suddenly she said the shop owner is forcing her to come to his house, have dinner etc with him (having a bad look at her). Then this man bought the up-stair unit where she was living (she was living in down-stairs which had a separate entrance). To face this issue and bring her back to Safi, it cost me around 30,000 MAD as she said these various stories which weren't sounding suspicious at all.

You might think I'm stupid the way I was sending money but all these happened with in 3 years of time little by little. And she was so smart the way she spoke, the way she cried- my heart was melted. I felt sorry for her for what she had been facing. Last few months I spend around another 40,000 MAD for her brothers school fees. I wanted to talk to brothers but they could not speak English and all they could speak was arabic other than saying Salam uncle. I requested her to send some pictures of her brothers too, but she kept putting it off every time and it never happened. The information I mentioned here is not the full story. There are many other things happened but I don't want to tell every single thing as it can make this description unbelievably long (this already is too long I guess).

Few days ago I logged in to the dating website where we met and I was searching for all women moroccan profiles where I found this lady's pictures which were among the pictures she sent me but this time under a different name and different city (name bing "Faraah" and the location being Fes in Morocco). I think what she does is creating different fake profiles and fraud money from innocent people and foreigners. I've reported this to the dating website and they've blocked this profile and requested all the users who have communicated with her to stop communicating or sending emails.

The bottom line is, I learnt a good lesson for whole my life. I wan't let this lady to do the same thing to anther innocent person, that's why I decided to write here. The total amount I lost from this scam was around $80,000. But I if its gone its gone, no point of worrying about the past. But if anyone out there who is capable of resolving this issue and get my money back, I will be so grateful.

I want to stop this scam before it happens to someone else.