Parents victim of 4000$ scam
Donation protected
My Dad was recently a victim of a $4000 police scam. He is the only person working in the house right now that too not in his field(engineering) but instead in a factory, because we moved to Canada, two years ago and because his qualifications were entirely foreign, he was not able to apply for jobs in his profession. The amount of work in this position, is not suitable for his age, as it involves heavy lifting etc, but he continues work tirelessly day and night in the factory to earn a living for our family, and there have been times where we were only barely able to make our ends meets. During all of this, one morning, when he returned from a night shift and was deep asleep, he got a scam call, the story goes as follows:
"In the morning of may 8th, 2017, at around 9am, when i was deep asleep as i returned from my night shift, I got a call from the number 911, claiming to have an arrest warrant to arrest me within the next 2 hours due to the fact that my neighbors registered a complaint against me for having a connection with a terrorist organization. They said that in order to escape the arrest warrant, the immigration is going to contact us. After that, I immidiately got a call from the official immigration number of Canada from Ottawa which is +16139956486 and they said that in order for me to escape the warrant charges, they are going to arrange a lawyer for me to help me out, which has to be through them because they are dealing with the case, and in order to get the lawyer, we have to get a lawyer from a different country than our country of residence or our country of origin to avoid bias, and that they have arranged a lawyer for us from china and the United States to handle the case. To process this case, they asked me to pay the lawyer a fee of 2600$ which will be reimbursed after the case is done. During all of this, they had all my information, my address, my phone numbers, the companies that i worked for etc.
Now before anyone says that how did i not think that this was all a scam, let me tell you that i had some friends over about 3 days ago and while they were leaving, we were talking in the lobby of our apartment in our native language (Urdu) and they were wearing traditional clothes(Shalwar Kameez), so it occured to me that someone probably felt threatened by that and complained about it and this whole thing is a result of that. On top of that, when i went out to arrange the money, a Police car concidently happened to follow me the whole way to the bank, and when i entered this departmental store to transfer the money, the police officer literally came to the counter i was checking out of, and asked the employee working at the counter where the washroom is, which frightened me and led me to believe this whole situation was real.
Because of the fact that i believed all of this, i transferred the amount they initially asked me to pay for the lawyer, which was 2600$ in the form of three different installments through Western Union, and the fake officers from the immigration number told me that the whole amount will be reimbursed within 48 hours should our case get cleared. Now, the fake immigration officers give me another call, telling me that in order to close the case, I have to pay 5100$ for a "cash bound" to the lawyer i already "hired", in order to form a security deposit, incase i exit the country, and that it will also be reimbursed once the case is closed. At this point, i was so mentally hypnotized and terrified, I lost all my thinking capabilities and even with a million doubts in by mind, i headed to the bank. while i divided the money in 5 different portions, and already send the first portion of 1300$ out, i got a call from my wife to pick her up as she was doing coop in a nearby school. I didn't tell her about the story as yet, because she had health issues and i didn't want to scare her. When she got in the car, i told her about the situation, she first got really upset about the amount i already sent, and asked me to go right away to the police station. Now let me tell you that those fake officers also told me to stay away from the police station as the police still has a "warrant" in file to arrest me. At this point, I did not have any fear left in me, and i headed for the police station. As soon as we got there, my wife rushed to the nearest booth, and told the lady officer on the counter about the whole situation, at which she started laughing and told right away that this was a scam. At this point, all our faces went pale, and we rushed back to the western unions which we used to transfer money, only to find out that the money has already been picked up on the fake officers side which totaled about 4200$+, as the fake immigration officers asked me to straight away provide MTCN's (the code for the money transfer used to collect money) whenever i made a transaction. I have lost a huge part of my savings, which was to be used for my children's education. Our whole family is still in extreme shock, still trying to figure out how we fell for such a ridiculous scam. It will take months, if not years to recover from the emotional, mental and financial trauma this scam has given our whole family. For me as a temporary resident, and a newcomer, that fear of being wrongly accused of a crime just for practicing my religion, speaking my language and wearing my traditional clothes is what really led my mind to believing in such a story. It speaks volumes about how these scam artists are becoming more and more popular and well trained day by day, and the main purpose of be sharing this story was to potentially save another person from falling into this trap."
It breaks my heart to see how my family is disturbed by this situation, and how someone can be so heartless to rob someone who already has serious financial need. My dad's current income is less than 35000$ a year, and with me and my sister entering univeristy this year from september, that 4200$ was a huge part of what could potentially have been our tuition savings. With your help, i believe i can lower the grievance and trauma that my family is going through, whilst also making up for their lost savings. If you are unable to help, please do share the story with your friends and family to make them aware of these types of scams
contact:
email:[email redacted]
mobile: [phone redacted]
for any external identification, please send me an email.
"In the morning of may 8th, 2017, at around 9am, when i was deep asleep as i returned from my night shift, I got a call from the number 911, claiming to have an arrest warrant to arrest me within the next 2 hours due to the fact that my neighbors registered a complaint against me for having a connection with a terrorist organization. They said that in order to escape the arrest warrant, the immigration is going to contact us. After that, I immidiately got a call from the official immigration number of Canada from Ottawa which is +16139956486 and they said that in order for me to escape the warrant charges, they are going to arrange a lawyer for me to help me out, which has to be through them because they are dealing with the case, and in order to get the lawyer, we have to get a lawyer from a different country than our country of residence or our country of origin to avoid bias, and that they have arranged a lawyer for us from china and the United States to handle the case. To process this case, they asked me to pay the lawyer a fee of 2600$ which will be reimbursed after the case is done. During all of this, they had all my information, my address, my phone numbers, the companies that i worked for etc.
Now before anyone says that how did i not think that this was all a scam, let me tell you that i had some friends over about 3 days ago and while they were leaving, we were talking in the lobby of our apartment in our native language (Urdu) and they were wearing traditional clothes(Shalwar Kameez), so it occured to me that someone probably felt threatened by that and complained about it and this whole thing is a result of that. On top of that, when i went out to arrange the money, a Police car concidently happened to follow me the whole way to the bank, and when i entered this departmental store to transfer the money, the police officer literally came to the counter i was checking out of, and asked the employee working at the counter where the washroom is, which frightened me and led me to believe this whole situation was real.
Because of the fact that i believed all of this, i transferred the amount they initially asked me to pay for the lawyer, which was 2600$ in the form of three different installments through Western Union, and the fake officers from the immigration number told me that the whole amount will be reimbursed within 48 hours should our case get cleared. Now, the fake immigration officers give me another call, telling me that in order to close the case, I have to pay 5100$ for a "cash bound" to the lawyer i already "hired", in order to form a security deposit, incase i exit the country, and that it will also be reimbursed once the case is closed. At this point, i was so mentally hypnotized and terrified, I lost all my thinking capabilities and even with a million doubts in by mind, i headed to the bank. while i divided the money in 5 different portions, and already send the first portion of 1300$ out, i got a call from my wife to pick her up as she was doing coop in a nearby school. I didn't tell her about the story as yet, because she had health issues and i didn't want to scare her. When she got in the car, i told her about the situation, she first got really upset about the amount i already sent, and asked me to go right away to the police station. Now let me tell you that those fake officers also told me to stay away from the police station as the police still has a "warrant" in file to arrest me. At this point, I did not have any fear left in me, and i headed for the police station. As soon as we got there, my wife rushed to the nearest booth, and told the lady officer on the counter about the whole situation, at which she started laughing and told right away that this was a scam. At this point, all our faces went pale, and we rushed back to the western unions which we used to transfer money, only to find out that the money has already been picked up on the fake officers side which totaled about 4200$+, as the fake immigration officers asked me to straight away provide MTCN's (the code for the money transfer used to collect money) whenever i made a transaction. I have lost a huge part of my savings, which was to be used for my children's education. Our whole family is still in extreme shock, still trying to figure out how we fell for such a ridiculous scam. It will take months, if not years to recover from the emotional, mental and financial trauma this scam has given our whole family. For me as a temporary resident, and a newcomer, that fear of being wrongly accused of a crime just for practicing my religion, speaking my language and wearing my traditional clothes is what really led my mind to believing in such a story. It speaks volumes about how these scam artists are becoming more and more popular and well trained day by day, and the main purpose of be sharing this story was to potentially save another person from falling into this trap."
It breaks my heart to see how my family is disturbed by this situation, and how someone can be so heartless to rob someone who already has serious financial need. My dad's current income is less than 35000$ a year, and with me and my sister entering univeristy this year from september, that 4200$ was a huge part of what could potentially have been our tuition savings. With your help, i believe i can lower the grievance and trauma that my family is going through, whilst also making up for their lost savings. If you are unable to help, please do share the story with your friends and family to make them aware of these types of scams
contact:
email:[email redacted]
mobile: [phone redacted]
for any external identification, please send me an email.
Organizer
Abdul Mujeeb
Organizer
London, ON
