New Online Military Scammers

I am inundated daily with emails and comments from people around the world thinking they are being scammed online by people professing to be Soldiers or Marines in a combat zone. I want to reiterate a few points about how to easily determine if the person you are speaking with is a real service member or not. 

1) They ask for money, especially through a money service like MoneyGram or Western Union. These are easy, immediate tip-offs.
2) They send you pictures that don’t match the rank and service they tell you they are. I can’t tell you how many times I get emails and comments asking me to look into someone saying they are a Staff Sergeant and wearing Major rank or a supposed Colonel wearing Sergeant Major rank. Educate yourself on military ranks and uniforms and do due diligence before wasting my time with these obvious indicators.
3) They tell you that they are assigned to a secret intelligence unit. People really assigned to secret intelligence units won’t say they are assigned to secret intelligence units.
4) Ask them to send you an email from their military email as confirmation. If they send you one, respond to it and ensure they didn’t make it up. You’ll find that most – if not, all – of these emails will come back undeliverable. If they say they can’t give it to you for security reasons, it’s a scam.
5) They need your help with “special leave.” This leaves will usually need to be signed by a general officer and will come with additional fees. Military personnel do not need a civilian’s help with processing leave. I’m married and I don’t even need my wife’s help if I want to take leave. It doesn’t cost military personnel a single penny to take leave – EVER!
6) Check the photos. Often time, these scammers are such complete morons; they’ll send multiple pictures of different people and claim to be the same person. If it doesn’t look right, it isn’t.
7) Uses a sob story about being a widower (usually say widow). Most of the photos these guys steal are from married troops and will contain photos with kids or a woman. To explain these images away, they “kill off” the spouse somehow and pull on the heartstrings with sob stories of having to raise children alone. Most obituaries are published online and a simple Google of obituaries will prove this scam. Hearing all these stories, one would think that the most dangerous place in the world isn’t Afghanistan, but it sounds like the truth is America’s roads.

With that said, in addition to the other names I’ve already given on other websites, I want to add a few here that have recently come to my attention. Please keep in mind that the real Soldiers – if, in fact, these names were real – are not the scammers, but criminals using their names and images. Be aware, Be safe and Be careful..