Tag Archives: scams

Treasurer of Cheerleading Club Scammed Out of Nearly $10K by “Boyfriend” in Ghana

Susan Loberto, 50, of Audubon, NJ thought she had met the man of her dreams on the dating website Chemistry.com. The only problem? She lived in New Jersey and he was stuck in Africa trying to finish a construction project . . . but he couldn’t access his US bank account. Could she help and send him few bucks so he could finish the project and come back to the States to be with her?

Sure. But where would Loberto get the money? Her “boyfriend” needed thousands in cash–now!

So, Loberto did whatever any love-lorn middle-aged woman would do: she allegedly embezzled the money from a middle school group she served as treasurer for, the Oaklyn Cats Cheerleading Club. Besides, he’d pay her back as soon as the project was done and he was back home, right?

As you might have guessed by now Ms. Loberto’s boyfriend wasn’t just visiting Africa, he was FROM Africa, specifically Ghana, and the she is never going to see that money again. She now faces fraud charges.

Source: Philly.com

Con Man Accused of Stealing $8000 From Parents of Young Baseball Players for “Traveling Team”

From our “Special Place in Hell” Dept: Jeff Halter, 40, came to Hobart, Indiana (near Chicago) with a glowing resume and the promise to build a traveling baseball team of elite local players. Parents of budding ballplayers (mostly 11-year-olds) gladly stepped up and each paid Halter $675 for uniforms, practice time and travel expenses. Practices started, everything looked good, and then according to police, Halter stopped showing up.

According to the boys parents, they then received a letter from Halter saying he had suffered a “breakdown” of some kind, but would be back soon. They became suspicious and checked in with the local uniform shop, only to find out that Halter allegedly had not paid for or even ordered the boy’s uniforms. A quick check of is resume found out that it had also been padded. And now, weeks later, no one has heard from Halter.

Halter is still on the loose, but has now been charged with 10 counts of felony theft.

Source: ABC News

It’s This Kind of Crap Internet

You know, it must seem like the world of the longest running sports/crime blogger (me) would be glamorous and filled with non-stop fun each day.

But no.

Most days are spend cleaning out my email inbox, deleting all sorts of scam emails and solicitations for my business. One of the more common solicitations is from search engine optimization (SEO) companies, boasting that they can get me to “The Top of Google Rankings.” Great. What popular and/or profitable term are they planning to use? Hazing? Naughty cheerleaders? No one ever really says and when I email back mockingly and ask them, they never have an answer.

That is, until yesterday when I got the message below from Ophelia Renee, with the subject line “Quick question about your website badjocks.com”. So I had to open it. We have to give it to Ms. Renee, at least she is suggesting a term that BadJocks could rank better for: sami khedira muslim.

It’s right there in the email. With her help creating some strong, inbound links, we could own the Google rankings for sami khedira muslim. So I had to look up what, or who, sami khedira is and, according to our friends at Wikipedia, he “is a German footballer currently playing for Real Madrid and the German national team. He is considered a dynamic midfielder with ‘flawless aerial ability’ who can cover a lot of ground, recover the ball and quickly join in the team attack with his powerful mid-range shooting.” Oh, and apparently there are frequent questions about his religion.

All told, he sounds like a pretty good, but not great, soccer player and we had a story about him back in February because he posed for the cover of GQ with his topless model girlfriend. Yes, there’s a picture, but if you do the clicky thing, don’t forget to come back.

An interesting story, no doubt, but we really don’t see ourselves becoming the world leader in all things Sami Khedira . . . no matter how much you guys beg us.

So, no, Ms. Renee, we will gladly decline your offer for your services, but we will include your toll free 800 phone number and email address below in case any of our readers have a need for your “service.” But thanks for writing!

(This is the exact, unedited version of the email.)

Hello, my name is Ophelia Renee and I am an Internet Rankings Engineer. I performed a Google search for the keyword sami khedira muslim and upon perusing past the first page, I ran across your website badjocks.com. I see that your website is currently not listed on the first page for this keyword search.

The fact is that your ranking and search engine positioning is easily correctable. There is no reason that your website cannot be ranked in the top three positions for the keyword sami khedira muslim based on your website’s very quality content and solid structure. You have a very good website that is built to convert when it can be found.

Your website needs high quality one way inbound anchor text links. I can help you with this.

We will get you ranked for the keyword sami khedira muslim in Google as well as many of your other targeted keywords. The key to this is adding new high quality anchor text links from a myriad of websites. Link building is the most important aspect of a websites ranking and will produce the business and results you seek for badjocks.com.

The type of links are extremely important to achieving top rankings…and I can bring these quality links to your website.

I can prove to you how effective this system is, risk free.

Nothing beats performance and after you see what we are able to do for your business you will feel confident in the results we can achieve for your business.

Would it be okay if I were to give you a call or you can certainly call me anytime. I would love to continue this discussion over the phone with you.

Sincerely,

Ophelia Renee
DBD SEO
(888) 2928858
ophelia@dbdseo.com