Finally, here comes the kicker. There was a section of this document that said I must submit ~ $15,000 for a bond that would be refunded to me in 10 days. I’ve been on the phone for hours, and at this point I’m exhausted. I’m totally brain-washed, isolated, and afraid. These scumbags convinced me that they know much more about the “situation” than I do. I was literally calling them “sir” and thanking them for helping me. They definitely played me for a duck. They explained to me that I would need to do an international wire transfer to an FBI account based out of Hong Kong, and this sounded totally reasonable to me. Lol, another red-flag. They explained that the bank would ask who I am sending the money to, and I should say I’m going on vacation to China, and I am sending this money to my travel agent. The reason for this was because the Department of Treasury has placed freezes on my bank accounts. In retrospect, this made absolutely no sense. It was towards the end of the day, so they told me to get some rest and they will call me in the morning to proceed. They asked me the closest bank address, and they told me to be there at 9 am ready to transfer the money. I’m like cool, no problem, I’ll send the money in the morning. Thank you for your service, have a good night.
During this entire ordeal, I was told not to tell anyone anything. I was told that the real culprit was someone close to me, and I could jeopardize their investigation if I was to talk about it. I was instructed to not even tell a lawyer. SMH, Jesus Christ another major red-flag. At this point I should have just sent them the money, because I deserved to get scammed lol. So my girlfriend is totally in the dark. She’s at her sister’s house crying thinking that she did something wrong, wondering why I’m avoiding her, wondering if I’m mad at her. I ask my girlfriend to meet me at a restaurant, and we sat down to have a drink. I started telling her the story, and almost immediately she started laughing hysterically. She’s like: It’s a scam! That story makes no sense! At that moment, it finally all clicked. I was so upset that I went outside and screamed into the parking lot. When I got back to my table, I checked online and my medical license was still active. I blocked all their numbers, and that was that.
I’ve heard stories about people getting scammed, and I never thought it could happen to me (well, almost happen to me.) These losers were organized, they were well researched, and they knew a lot of details about me. They knew the names of some of my co-workers, they knew my home addresses, and the had other little bits of info on me. They were able to leverage these details to gain my confidence. They used psychological tactics. It was diabolical. Anyways, I just wanted to share this traumatic moment in my life with you readers. I definitely learned a lesson that day, and hopefully you all can learn something from this as well.
