Captain Bradley Strickland, Special forces and scammer

[petale45]

I believe I'm involved in a new twist on a scam. But I don't know how to do the baiting or even what I should do with what I have. I actually haven't been able to prove it as his picture and adress are nowhere reported.

I met the gentleman on a dating site and he then lead me to believe that he was a canadian soldier in Afghanistan. Because I recognize the fatigues on the picture to be US army, he then admitted being an american soldier in special forces.

Because of the special forces need for security, he's asking me now to register with a Tel Satellite company to get TelSat. Around $800 US from what was mentionned, but still waiting for TelSat reply on this.

I'd like to bait him, but wouldn't even know what to do with the info if I suceeded in baiting him.

Also the fact that I'm in contact with a third party, the TelSat people, it feels more official and I haven't seen that in any of the scam report I saw.

All the other signs are there, the fast undying love declaration, the use of grammar, the I love you so loads, not typical of english speaking person, the dissapearance of his profile from the dating website... I'm sure it's a scam.

Any advice... Any one??? I'm at lost this is totally new for me... should I even bother to try to bait him, send him a Dear John letter or tell him that the game's over and I know he's trying to scam me.

[dotti]

While I haven't heard anyone report a scammer trying to get them to sign up for TelSat in particular, it is actually not at all uncommon for scammers to use victims to buy them new electronics or sign them up for services-- telephone, internet, banking, whatever. In fact, in a bait a few months back, one hitlad scammer tried to get a 10 year old "victim" (a baiter playing a 10 year old, actually) to steal mom and dad's credit card and renew his subscription to an online dating service! If he is trying to get you to sign up for it, then he expects to get access to it and he has some need or plan for its use.

If the profile he met you under contains your real information, then drop him. Do not tell him you know he is a scammer (we don't want them to know what doesn't work or they will change their approach). Either drop him completely without any word, or if you really feel the need to close things, tell him you are not interested/met someone else and then do not answer any further communication from him (block his email if you can).

If this is a baiting profile and absolutely nothing ties back to you (name, location, emails, phone numbers, identifiable information) then you can use normal baiting tactics--ask lots of questions, 1 or 2 per email, get confused, need help sorting it out, etc.

[wayne]

Welcome. You're right, it is a weird one. Can we start with the email headers, so we can see where this one's really from? Then we can take it from there and try to work out what the hell it's about.

[Victimsad2]

I ran across this type of scam about a month ago. I starting talking with a man I thought was in the service. His name was Tim Peterman, email address sosimpletim@yahoo.com. He wanted to talk to me on the phone so he wanted me to set something so we could talk. I can't remember the exact name of the system he wanted me to use but I do remember it costing about $800. I came across this man on a christian singles site. I posted his email and picture on this site. I will include his picture here.

I have more pictures if needed.

[Victimsad2]

I posted information about this scammer on Feb 22, 2009 on the thread Another scammer -- Tim Peterman.

This man scammed a woman out of $104,000.

[petale45]

I didn't start wanting to bait him, but after finding out it's a scam I did want to. He's using yahoo mail so it doesn't say much about him. The email from the Telsat company is totally bogus and they must think I'm stupid. It has no logo, no phone number, title of the sender or address of the company. I also found the exact same letter, almost word by word on a site about a TELEX Scam. Only the company name is different.

Right now all he has is my real name and my cell phone number, which is prepaid and confidential. He ask before I knew he was a scammer. Gave Telsat a fake adress when they asked later on. I thought if I could bait them it might keep them from doing it to someone else. However, I realize now that I'm over my head. I wouldn't even know what to do if I did succeeded in baiting him. So, as most of you suggested, I will send a Dear John letter and block him.

I'm adding his picture. It won't help much as half of his face is hidden. That was actually my first flag. No way this guy is 44. Also, when he sent me this picture, he lead me to believe he was Canadian Special Forces. I recognise the fatigues as being american he then admitted being a US Special Forces, thus the need for special satelite phone because of security. He said he was born in California, and his name, rank and location were Captain Brad Strickland Thomas K., in Afghanistan, Kabul base, on his profile his nick was BigLecturer. I did ask for another picture, the one that was on his profile... he never said no or yes... he just didn't send it. Finally, we communicated mostly through MSN, but the emails he sent me were all copied from greeting card and love poems sites, just making a few alteration to fit his story. At least I know how to Google. LOL

He didn't ask me for any money... not himself, but the Telsat company he ask me to register with is suppose to send me the costs of it plus another series of personal questions. I tried to find more, but I don't have the computer knowledge, all I know is that in their address Telecomsatellite@military.com, the military.com is not a recognized domaine. I don't know how to get the IP on a yahoo mail account, I do have it for the Telsat people who replied, but don't know how to identify where the IP is from. How does one tell if something is out of Nigeria...

Thank you all so very much. I won't pursue this, I don't feel I have the right knowledge and computer skills to bait him.

[duckhunter]

I agree. Tell him you've found someone else, but check the header and if he hails out of Nigeria or is using a cover satelite provider, then post him here and move on. I wouldn't be surprised, if he's a scammer, if he offers to send you a cheque to pay for the telsat. Whoever he is or whatever he's up to, I smell something rotten.

I have been contacted by a few scammers lately who also say they're in Afhganistan lately, and it can work well with the satellite ip addresses they are using.

[Victimsad2]

I found the email this Tim Peteman sent me requesting the phone service. He told me he was stationed in Afghanistan and loved to write poetry. I got a poem almost everyday and you could tell it was something he copied and pasted off of the internet. The IP address his messages came from is 41.222.40.54 -- Nigeria (Odua).

This is the email--

Thanks so much for the message and it will be absolutely good to talk on phone as well as it is the best communication so far to be able to hear each other and that will make us work things out... Well to get registered with the telecommunication you will have to email them with ts2voip@military.com or ts2@engineer.com and you have to tell them you want to use the phoning facility system with MG TI M PETERMAN presently on deployment in Afghanistan.
The service is a way we can talk on phone without no call charges attached, all is 100% free after we get registered and the registration cost approximately 800bucks.

It will be great if we can get this to work out so we can call each other and that will makes us to easily know each other more...

Take care and waiting to know you more...
Tim

[petale45]

I got pretty much the same email... but how do one get an IP adress from a yahoo message. I can't see numbers like these anywhere on the message.

For the Telsat Com emails... All I know to do is to look under property and under details. Here's what I got.

Received: by 10.90.86.13 with SMTP id j13cs178751agb;
Thu, 5 Mar 2009 12:43:52 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.142.169.4 with SMTP id r4mr699170wfe.105.1236285831196;
Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:43:51 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <Telecomsatellite@military.com>
Received: from mail2world.com (mwde02oc.mail2world.com [209.67.128.172])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 24si572980wff.22.2009.03.05.12.43.50;
Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:43:50 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: fail (google.com: domain of Telecomsatellite@military.com does not designate 209.67.128.172 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.67.128.172;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=hardfail (google.com: domain of Telecomsatellite@military.com does not designate 209.67.128.172 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=Telecomsatellite@military.com
Received: from mail pickup service by mail2world.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC;
Thu, 5 Mar 2009 12:42:46 -0800
auth-sender:Telecomsatellite@military.com
Return-Path: <Telecomsatellite@military.com>
Received: from 10.1.106.8 unverified ([10.1.106.8]) by mwde02oc.mail2world.com with Mail2World SMTP Server;
Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:42:45 -0800
Thread-Topic: ************************TELSAT INSTALLATIONS************************
Received: from [67.205.111.78] by military.com with HTTP; 3/5/2009 12:42:15 PM PST
X-M2WAction: reply
Thread-index: Acmd0t4w14N/rlrTQNCgZV4H1A8oNA==
From: "Brian Rogers" <Telecomsatellite@military.com>
Subject: ************************TELSAT INSTALLATIONS************************
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 12:42:15 -0800
Message-ID: <df1c01c99dd2$de335990$086a010a@mail2world.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_DF1D_01C99D8F.D0101990"
X-Mailer: Microsoft CDO for Exchange 2000
X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.3790.2929
Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
Importance: normal
Priority: normal
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 05 Mar 2009 20:42:46.0282 (UTC) FILETIME=[F0A52EA0:01C99DD2]

I don't have a clue as to what all those lines means... just a feeling something's not right... not governmental. The only line that has the mention IP is this one ip=209.67.128.172. Nothing like the one you quoted. I still don't think it's legit.

[duckhunter]

have you googled the poetry yet Victimsad? I used to enjoy finding where they got it and sending another poem from the same site back to them....they never did figure out what i was doing but i found it quite entertaining.

[petale45]

Most of the ones I got were from Lovingyou.com Love letters. That was another flag for me, his wrinting when in IM was so different from his emails.

[Victimsad2]

Petale45, if you go to the useful resource thread on the forum index you will find a thread on how to check email headers. It is simple to do. Let me know if I can help.

[duckhunter]

I think that Telsat thing might be hiding his location. can you post some of his correspondence so we can look for the clues in his grammar, punctuation and other little clues he may be a scammer?

[petale45]

I googled it... Told you I'm good at google... and got the following header for the jerk.


X-SID-PRA: Cpt.Brad K.Thomas <cpt.bradwayxxx@yahoo.com>
X-YMail-OSG: Received: from [82.128.34.221] by web46308.mail.sp1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:19:33 PST
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 02:19:33 -0800 (PST)

[petale45]

I think that Telsat thing might be hiding his location. can you post some of his correspondence so we can look for the clues in his grammar, punctuation and other little clues he may be a scammer?

Most of our talking was done on MSN so I don't have them.

Most emails were cut and paste from love letters on internet. But he shows all the signs, used "i' instead of "I" and his english is not that great for an american born and raised in the US.

However the last email I got from him, was more of his writing... so I post it here. His english is actually pretty atrocious. The middle paragraph is a copy and you can see the difference with the first one.

Good Morning My Dear,

I miss you, I really do. my mind is with you at every mome which i know how you will be missing me to but i cant just help it right now just had to go for the telsat because we are facing lots of difficultites here and sometimes i will not be allowe to come on the computer i because of the present situations of things here, you are constantly in my thoughts,guess seeing me in your dreams in your fantasies? I guess I still can't believe that you're here with me now at this moment ... God I'm blushing!

There are no words that can possibly explain how I feel right now, because in fact, I've never felt this before ... sounds so cliché doesn't it? But that's a fact that I can never hide just like the blush on my cheeks ... always visible manifestations of the love I feel inside.

I don't know if you'll read this; it doesn't really matter though, you're mine and that's what counts.

Love you!

Have you emailed your details to the telsat yet?

Brad your baby.

I can post the TelSat emails if you need to see them.

Thanks again for all your help.