Assignment 13

In 2010 my next door neighbor was scammed out of 600,000 american dollars. It started out with an online scammer pretending to be her sister stuck in London not able to fly home. She begged and pleaded to get a large sum of money to come home and buy a small apartment. At the my neighbor was a MD (Medical Doctor) at Fountain Valley Hospital. She had been working there for 3 years and making a lot money. She was living alone in a 1 bedroom apartment. She had no boyfriend and no relatives that were close. The closes relative she had was her sister and they talked about every day sense they both moved out of the house. Its was around april that her sister had been missing for a couple weeks and she had been running frantic trying to find her. The scammer most of know that she was missing because when she got the first email she blew up with happiness. They never talked on the phone just exchanged emails for a period of 3 to 4 months. The first email consist of a "hello" and "Im safe do not worry i'm just in a bit of trouble". The next emails were a explanation of how she ended up in London and why she need 600,000$. The scammer explained that she had met up with a amazingly kind and sweet hearted british man and that she had decided to move with him to London. The scammer continue to say that she moved to London in hopes of starting an amazing relationship but he had abandoned her at the air port and she had been walking around lost for weeks. She said she needs money to fly back and get an apartment in New York because she had sold her old. The scammer asked for a sum of 600,000 american dollars and promised that she would be repaid when she was stable and back on her feet. Given it was her sister that she loved so much she did not hesitate to send the money in a card to a address in london. The scammer stop emailing for a couple day until she replied " OMG thank you soo much!!!!! I am about to buy the next flight to New York... I will email you when I and find the nearest internet cafe <333 again thank you Cherry". My neighbor was happy to help what she thought was her sister. Weeks later she had no reply from her and she went to check is the money was all spent and she saw that she had been blocked from the account and that the money was transfer into another account. To this day she has no idea who scammed her.