I was in the middle of writing one of my patented long-winded replies to this thread when Michael made his second post. My original post was going to be to explain to him why his original post came off as seeming suspicious and perhaps had many of the signs of a scam. I saw he had posted a phone number in his second post, so I thought to myself "why not give the guy a call and see what's up?"
One thing I can say with certainty - the guy who answered the phone is, to me, the very same guy who has the voice in the video on the link that his original post linked to. A very distinct Boston accent whose voice sounded just like the guy's voice in the video. To be thoroughly honest, I suppose that someone could do a voice-over on an existing video of a fire, but that video didn't seem like that to me.
We talked for about a half hour or so. I found out what his disability is, also his wife's (which hopefully is short-term and she is recovering). He had the kind of details about the incident, about how he's currently living, etc, that make me believe he is an American living here in currently dire circumstances. I could hear his wife in the background adding details as we talked. Personally, I'm convinced that the guy's for real, but I would not presume to lead anyone else into feeling secure about this just off of what I say. I understand the first feeling on something like this being anywhere from extreme caution to outright laughable certainty that he is trying to pull a scam. However, "scam" is not my thought after having conversed with Michael.
I've known two different Americans here that were scammers. They both felt suspicious to me within a short time after they started talking, the things they talked about and the direction the conversations went. One of them died recently (I heard through the grapevine) and the other one left a few years ago and as far as I know hasn't been heard from again. Both of these guys did considerable damage to people I know, as well as to people I only heard about. In the early 80's, in Houston, I met an actual Nigerian (or so he told me) face-to-face who tried to scam me, before the internet and email made such things even easier.
I know that scammers can be very persuasive but Michael didn't come off like that at all to me.
I can understand someone, one who knows himself not to be a scammer, getting pissed off when someone calls that person a scammer and is in real trouble - and he acknowledged that he didn't handle the second post very well.
I suggested that Michael tone down the anger and provide some more details as to what happened, what kind of situation he's in, etc., if he wants to convince people that he's for real.
One thing I can say with certainty - the guy who answered the phone is, to me, the very same guy who has the voice in the video on the link that his original post linked to. A very distinct Boston accent whose voice sounded just like the guy's voice in the video. To be thoroughly honest, I suppose that someone could do a voice-over on an existing video of a fire, but that video didn't seem like that to me.
We talked for about a half hour or so. I found out what his disability is, also his wife's (which hopefully is short-term and she is recovering). He had the kind of details about the incident, about how he's currently living, etc, that make me believe he is an American living here in currently dire circumstances. I could hear his wife in the background adding details as we talked. Personally, I'm convinced that the guy's for real, but I would not presume to lead anyone else into feeling secure about this just off of what I say. I understand the first feeling on something like this being anywhere from extreme caution to outright laughable certainty that he is trying to pull a scam. However, "scam" is not my thought after having conversed with Michael.
I've known two different Americans here that were scammers. They both felt suspicious to me within a short time after they started talking, the things they talked about and the direction the conversations went. One of them died recently (I heard through the grapevine) and the other one left a few years ago and as far as I know hasn't been heard from again. Both of these guys did considerable damage to people I know, as well as to people I only heard about. In the early 80's, in Houston, I met an actual Nigerian (or so he told me) face-to-face who tried to scam me, before the internet and email made such things even easier.
I know that scammers can be very persuasive but Michael didn't come off like that at all to me.
I can understand someone, one who knows himself not to be a scammer, getting pissed off when someone calls that person a scammer and is in real trouble - and he acknowledged that he didn't handle the second post very well.
I suggested that Michael tone down the anger and provide some more details as to what happened, what kind of situation he's in, etc., if he wants to convince people that he's for real.
