Original contact with this person was on Zoosk.com
Consumer Report

There is no exact single date that this occurred but this occurred over the course of several months (beginning in approximately November). I met this woman on Zoosk.com which is a dating site who goes by the name of Melony or Mel Yonah. We established contact initially through the website through which she provided an e-mail address through which to contact her (btrcyonah@hotmail.com and btrcyonah@yahoo.com). After some introductory chatting which we did on Yahoo Messenger, she expressed that she and her "mother" were living very poorly and convinced me to send her money via Western Union to help her out. This was probably the "baiting" period to see if she could completely sink her hook into me. After some time, she told me that she was in possession of a sum of gold that her father had left her as an inheritance but that it was not in her name and required a lawyer in order to have it placed into her name. This required a lawyer's fee of $2500 which I sent to her. After that, she then told me the gold was in a security company and had accumulated fees during their possession in the amount of $25000 and asked for my help in paying for it. I resisted for some time saying that I could not pay that kind of money as it was not available to me. After some time, she then said that her lawyer negotiated with the security company and cut the price in half and said that her lawyer was able to obtain $5000 (I have the e-mail that was sent to me from him about this request) and over a period of time convinced me to pay for the remaining $7500 which I did by a check from a cash management account I possess. Over the next few months, she was trying to find a way (supposedly) to make enough money in order for her to travel to the US in order to be with me (this woman lives in Accra, Ghana) and during this time I was sustaining her by sending money in the amounts ranging from $300 to $700 from time to time. She told me her plan was to ship the gold to the US for "our" mutual benefit and told me that a diplomatic courier was required and would cost $4500 which I wired to her bank account from my own. On May 1 of this year, she supposedly arrived in New York City at JFK and was detained by customs for non-payment of customs fees for the gold she was bringing with her. I was in communication with someone who called himself Jim Smith who said he was a customs administrator and said he was contacting me personally and off the record to satisfy payment of the customs fees required by the Ghana customs people. (I have e-mails from him including attachments of supposed documents sent from Ghana customs and his ID badge). I was told that the Ghana customs required $23000 of fees which over the course of several weeks (a month and a half actually) I was conned into sending to Melony's "mother" and Melony's bank account via Western Union and wire transfer. After that was satisfied, I was then told that her visa had expired and she needed a total of $1900 to take care of that which I wired to a name Melony gave me via Western Union. After that, the customs agent next wanted me to send another $700 for an airplane ticket to my place of residence and it was at that point that I called a halt to the whole thing and have not heard from these people since that time. As you can see, this was a long involved complicated process and I was asked for money for many different scenarios (different angles I guess for the same goal). Through this entire process, she professed being a Christian and assured me I would be paid back, etc etc and now I have finally been convinced that this was a very well put together con game.

Company: Original contact with this person was on Zoosk.com
Country: USA

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