A couple I know, husband H and wife W, are very excited about some upcoming events in their lives. They met a friend over the internet, F, about two years ago. They’ve chatted a lot online, and F even came to live with H&W for about a month.
Since then, they all (and F’s spouse, FS) have decided to purchase a house in another country an move in together. However, H&W have no money or valuable assets, but a lot of debt, so F and FS will be footing the entire bill. House, furnishings, travel costs, everything. W is even expecting to travel the world for the specific purpose of furnishing this house with only the best.
Everything in that last paragraph screams “scam”. But I can’t figure out what F would be going after to make all this invested time and effort pay off. F seems to be getting noting out of this entire arrangement, which leaves me confused. What could be happening here?
F and FS have already gotten a free month’s room and board in the US. Normally in these scenarios H&W will be required to raise a sum of cash or (on some pretext) act as go betweens in scamming a bank or other financial entity.
Assuming they are wealthy and somewhat eccentric to do this it might be for real, but based on my life experience the goodwill and accompanying largess of wealthy eccentrics tends to be a bit mercurial. If H&W are jumping with both feet into this scenario they had better make sure there’s an exit strategy if the relationship goes sour that doesn’t put them on the street.
If they are already one step from the street they may have nothing to lose.
So…who is doing the scamming? H &W have no credit but get to move and will be provided for.
But if anything, I’d suggest W never leaves his luggage out of sight when traveling. Or take any items from anyone on those trips. He might be smuggling illegal stuff.
I suspect that , although you think you know couple H and W, there some facts that you don’t know. And apparently F does know them (or thinks he does).
There must be something else going on.
For example, you say they have no assets, a lot of debt…and F is aware of this.
Maybe you are wrong.Maybe they do have assets–or think they do.
Maybe they are sure that they are about to receive a lot of money, because they have been in contact with a nice Nigerian prince, who just needs a little help getting it out of his country.
So …something weird is going on…and we need more facts.
I’m betting H and W overstated their own financial situation to their friends. Maybe they came up with some excuse on why they didn’t have the down payment but reassured their friends they would contribute to the mortgage. Maybe its F and FW that are going to get scammed when this American couple end up being kind of deadbeats that don’t pay for anything :dubious:
It seems really risky to just buy a house in another country with people like this. Sure they lived with them for a month, but the arrangement just doesn’t seem right- it would be a lot less skeezy if F and FW offered to rent space for them to live in, implying an equal share and free choice in the arrangement. But just up and saying yeah you can move in with us even though you don’t have any money or credit seems suspicious. Whats going to happen when these magnanimous hosts get sick of their freeloading guests a few years down the road, after the expats have severed many career and social ties stateside? If they have bad credit but own their home/mortgage, at least they have a roof over their head. Relying on others for it is really risky in my opinion.
Why do you say that? Scams require one of the parties to be fooled into paying money to the scammer. If F is trying to scam them, he’s putting up a whole lot of his own money to try and get money out of a couple who have “no money or valuable assets”. If H&W are trying to scam F, one would think that they would at least pretend to be putting up much of the money, rather than tell F that they’re flat broke and need him to buy the house, furnish it and buy them plane tickets around the world.
Not to say that F isn’t necessarily being taken for a ride by H&W, who are leveraging F’s financial wherewithal for their own personal benefit. They don’t seem to be scamming F, since he knows they have no money and is agreeing to pay their way. H&W are also taking a big risk relying on F’s money, but that’s not a scam either.
H & W sell their house, and move to this foreign country.
H & W put all of their equity into this half of the house.
Foreign country does not allow non-citizens to own property.
F & FS happen to be citizens.
F & FS take H & W’s equity for half of the new house, but have F/FS on the title.
F & FS call the policia/gendarme/polizei to have H & W removed
H & W can’t prove anything, and are effed.
F & FS put up a few thousand to get a few hundred thousand in return.
F and FS are, as far as I know, UK citizens. If H&W ignore the details of owning foreign property (likely) but F&FS don’t, then Chilliwack’s scenario is still plausible.
W has no family money. H’s family has some, but has disowned him. AFAIK, they don’t have any particular knowledge of other countries.
Scams usually start out with the scamee thinking that they’re getting a lot of benefit without giving anything up. That seems to be what’s going on here.
I’m hoping that it is a sex thing. Knowing H&W, the odds that they actually make it to Portugal in even the best situation are pretty low. I’m more worried that the other shoe will drop before they ever get the chance to leave.
But if he actually does, I wouldn’t necessarily assume it’s a scam (Portugal and the UK aren’t countries where you would be left without recourses if you were scammed). As others have stated, I’d guess a sex thing, where F and FS are quite happy to pay for H and W accomodation. Of course, even if it’s the case, there’s no guarantee that H and W won’t eventually be left in the cold.
(too late to edit, sorry)
