Scam Type
Romance Scam
Date Reported
2023-01-28 00:00:00
Victim Postal Code
V5M 1P3
Total Dollars Lost
0
Scam Description
The scammer, Alfred Zhiyong, is an architect in Morpeth, UK. He claimed he was born in the UK, and his dad is a Singaporean. He approached me on Instagram at the end of Dec. Quickly; we moved to Line and then WhatsApp. We talked every day and shared a daily life photo of ourselves.
After the first week, he claimed he liked me and wanted to be with me. Since I planned a trip to the UK to visit my friend this year, so I bought a ticket and planned to spend some time to get to know him in the UK in April this year. Three weeks later, he said he needed to fly to Malaysia to settle some inheritance issues for his dad. He claimed his dad passed last year in January, and the company owned his dad’s contract money, which is 4.5mil USD. To claim the money in Malaysia, he has to go to court to apply for some documents to prove he is the kin of the inheritance, which is USD 20500 for the legal and documents fee. On the same day, he told me his mom went to the hospital due to a fall. Her nanny contacted him, and his mom was unconscious. He said he didn’t bring a credit card and used up his cash, and he did not expect to pay the legal fee for the documents. The lawyer, his dad’s best friend, Mr. Denise, lent him 10k USD, and he still needs 3.5k USD to cover the rest. He asked me if I could lend to him; he tried to threaten me by saying I don’t love him and trust him. I told him I only could help him with half of the money, and then he said he didn’t have money to pay for his hotel bill, which was 2.5k USD. He asked me if I could lend him an additional 1k USD. He promises me he will pay me back after he collects his inheritance. He tried to convince me to ask my family and friends to lend me the money for him. However, he told me not to mention this inheritance to anyone because he didn’t want me in danger. He tried to send me his passport copy and his incomplete home address in the UK. I insisted on asking him to do a video call before I lent him the money. He refused and said he would do it with me after returning to the UK. He wants to settle everything and leave the country asap. He was rushing me to get my money ready. I tried to look at his passport and realized is fake, photo-edited. I messaged him and told him I would report him to the police and blocked all his Instagram accounts and all phone contact afterward. He deleted his Instagram account within a couple of hours later. And I found that he created another account on Instagram, xu_alfred, using the different photo of him afterward. Honestly, I am unsure if he is the real Alfred Zhiyong; maybe be stolen someone’s identification.
