I have a young man who is a friend of mine. I met him on instagram, and never in person. He lives in Africa. For a few MONTHS we've had good messages back and forth sharing prayer requests and encouraging each other with Bible verses and so forth. Then last week he tells me his brother is sick, he sends me a picture of his brother, and asks me if I can help. He didn't send any kind of pay link or anything that obvious (maybe that is coming next). Just asking for help. This sort of made a red flag go off in my mind. Then today he asks again if I am going to help him or not. Still without any kind of link or address to send money too.

Also suspicious is, if he is THAT broke how does he have a cell phone and/or electricity, let alone internet. Also his instagram is completely empty, no posts at all.

He SEEMED sincere and I want to help, but its starting to seem fishy, like a long con.

On the off chance that he really is destitute with a sick brother, how could I help without giving him money directly? What charity could I give money too and then refer him too?

What do you all think, am I right to be suspicious?

Sounds suspicious to me, he may have this going on with numerous people so it’s a steady income flow

I would continue to pray for him and now his brother. Nothing more powerful than prayer. God bless

Last year he was the Minister of Treasury for Nigeria and had $27,000,000 of unclaimed cash he needed to send to someone.

walk away, scam.

even if you give to a charity he won't be there for any treatment.

people are that low.

Red flag scam alert in my book. Just to prove it to yourself, ask him how you can help other than sending money.

Scam.

You and about 5000 other people he's been saying the same things to. It's done by a group using a script, stock pics or pics pulled from some facebook account they found. It's usually done from an internet cafe (and probably not one in Africa).

Ghost them.

Bye 👋

your gut feeling is correct , he has probably a 100 "friends" going right now.


It happens , be glad you sniffed it out.


My poor brother in law has a deal like this going where his Mother In Law is going to leave her husband and marry "the" Bob Seger and she had already wire "the" Bob Seger $80k

Say goodbye to the phisher. Now if you haven't already.

This^^^^^^

Holy smokes - would like to hear more about that one. Story time!

It's crazy, some how she got suckered into an online romance with Bob Seger , the con artists have even arranged to meet for dinner or at a hotel etc.


Then they pose as his daughter and say he's caught up in customs or some bulsh and his wallet and ID are in his luggage.

some special scum.