A person calling themself Elena Inyutina contacted him on an American based dating service, showing interest in him. She wrote Mr. Coffman and commented that he was the only person that she picked to contact.

He replied back, and then they started emailing each other daily for several months. “Everything seemed to be going very well between us in our email correspondence.” remarked Mr.Coffman. “I never had a woman talk to me the way that Elena did.” said Mr. Coffman.

The Russian scammer told Mr. Coffman in an email at the beginning of their correspondence about an old friend of hers that joined a dating service and met an American gentleman. They wrote each other for several months, and then she came to the U.S. to meet him. Shortly there after they were married, and she moved to the U.S. to live with him, and was very happy with her choice. The scammer wrote Mr. Coffman that this happened about 1 year ago, and that she was ready to settle down, and thought of what her friend had remarked to her the previous year. So she decided to join a dating service herself.

The scammer told Mr. Coffman about 2 1/2 months of their writing each other that she thought that “they should meet in person, and was willing to come to the (U.S.) to meet him.” She wrote, “A day together was worth 1000 emails.”

The next day the scammer emailed Mr. Coffman and remarked that she had checked into the cost of a Visa and airline tickets, and that she only had $160.00 US saved, which would not even pay for the cost of the Visa. So Mr. Coffman offered to buy the ticket himself and send it to her. The scammer replied “that she could go through an agency in Novosibirsk (the major city near where she lived) called Novosibirsk International Visa Agency or NIVA; If she when through them that they could cut the time it would take for her to be able to come to the U.S. so that they could meet, because they were contracted with the U.S. Embassy.

She told him that if he bought the ticket in the U.S. and sent it to her, she would have to drive to Moscow herself to get her visa, which was 2000 miles away, and would add to the delay of her coming to the U.S., so Mr. Coffman first wired her $360.00 Western Union for her visa.

A couple of days passed then the scammer sent Mr. Coffman an email with a (copy & paste) in it of an Aeroflot schedule and cost for a flight that cost almost $900.00, so Mr. Coffman wired her the $900.00 via Western Union.

Another couple of days passed then she wrote Mr. Coffman that she had only purchased a one-way ticket and had planned to buy the return ticket in the U.S. because she didn’t know how long that she would stay. She went to NIVA to fill out some paperwork for her trip and mentioned to them that she only had a one-way ticket and they told her that the only way she would be able to come is if she had a round trip ticket.

So the scammer emailed again and said that she could exchange her ticket for another day and flight but she would need another $700.00 to make up the difference for the round trip, and asked Mr. Coffman if he could send this money also, which he did.

As the days grew closer to the flight date the scammer writes Mr. Coffman saying that she could not come because NIVA said that she also needed another $700 euro for what she called (Tramp money). The scammer claimed that NIVA told her that this was not their rule, but a U.S. Customs rule, and that they would not allow her to pass through customs without this money.

Hearing this news, Mr. Coffman went on line to the U.S. Customs website and found the rules on entry for non-US citizens and found no such rule. He even went to the U.S. Customs office in Phoenix and personally asked them of the rule, and was told that there is no such rule for US entry.

He emailed the scammer back and copied and pasted the U.S. Customs rules and a hyper link to the U.S. Customs site stating that there is no such law or rule. The scammer would not comment back on this.

Mr. Coffman emailed her again, and sent the information on the U.S. Customs rules again, and told her that if NIVA was going to stop her from coming because of their claim of needing pocket money, that she needed to go to the police with this information and allow the police to take care of it, so that she could still make the scheduled flight. The scammer never commented back in her emails as to what she would do in this regard.

The day came for the scheduled flight to arrive and Mr. Coffman was there at the airport to meet her, and she did not show up on the scheduled arrival flight.

A couple of days passed before the scammer email Mr. Coffman again. Then an email came to him with a new flight schedule, and the scammer commented that she still needed the $700 euro to be able to come.

On the following day, she emailed him and asked if there was anything wrong, that he seemed to be upset. Mr. Coffman replied in his return email that he was indeed upset, and stated the multiple reasons why. The scammer never emailed him back to this day.

Mr. Coffman then decided to start doing some internet research on all of this. He knew a person that had a friend who lived in Novosibirsk to check the phone book for NIVA, and found that it did not even exist.

Then Mr. Coffman went back on the internet and found the scammer on multiple (Russian Dating/Marriage Blacklists), with some of the same pictures that she had sent him. He also researched and discovered that she had been doing this since 1999, and had used a dozen different names and towns that she was suppose to be from in the Russian Federation, and even one from the Ukraine.

He was able to (connect the dots) because of the pictures that she had sent him. The scammer used the same pictures, and several more that they had not sent him, to other men that she had done the same scam with. Some of these pictures were semi-nudes with her only wearing panties. On one site even had a visa with her picture on it.

One guy who sent in his story to a Black List site which called her “Queen of the Russian scammers.”

Mr. Coffman says, “I will probably see a penny of my money back, but I just want to help to stop anyone else from getting ripped off this way”.

Mr. Coffman also called the FBI to file a complaint, and was told to do this through their special branch called; Internet Fraud Complaint Center or IFCC. He filed the complaint and uploaded all his information that he had in regards to this encounter.

Unfortunately Mr. Coffman only received one automated email back from the IFCC that said the following: (This is an automated response. Please do not respond to this message.)

Thank you for filing a complaint with IFCC. If you have comments or problems related to this Web site, please send us an E-mail via http://www.ifccfbi.gov/contactus.asp
*** Please do not contact the IFCC to ascertain the status of your complaint. We cannot respond to these inquires. ***

The IFCC receives thousands of complaints monthly and does not have the resources to respond to these inquiries. It is the IFCC's intention to review all complaints and refer them to law enforcement and regulatory agencies having jurisdiction.

Investigation and prosecution are at the discretion of the receiving agencies.
Additional information related to your complaint. If at any time you wish to report additional information related to your complaint, please go to https://www.ifccfbi.gov/updateEvidence related to your complaint.

It is important that you keep any evidence you may have related to your complaint. Evidence may include canceled checks; credit card receipts; phone bills; faxes; pamphlets or brochures; mailing envelopes; certified or other mail receipts; a printed copy of a Web site, chat room, or newsgroup text; or similar items. Keep items in a safe location until you are requested to provide them for investigative or prosecutive evidence. If requested to provide evidence, send copies only, not originals. Viewing and printing a copy of your complaint.

The file attached to this e-mail is the complaint you reported to IFCC. Itis formatted as a Adobe Acrobat portable document format (PDF) file. To viewand print a PDF file, you must have the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader loaded onyour computer.
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Mr. Coffman said, “I have not received any other response from the IFCC except the above email.” “March 7, 2005 was the last email that I received from Elena.”

I just hope that others who read or watch this storyline never fall prey to this type of ongoing scam.

Personal Note: I have since been contacted by (other) Russian women from dating sites that claim they are living or staying in the US, but their return email address has (.ru) at the end of their email address. Any address that has .ru at the end of it means that it originates from Russia, and they ARE NOT in the US as they claim. I have emailed back to these contacts and pointed this out and have never have received a return response from any of them. This seems to be the latest twist to the Russian scammer’s attempts at tapping into the US dating pool.

I truly feel that any contact like this that is deceptive can only mean that they are some of these Russian scammers. Anyone contacted in this manner should report this to the IFCC at http://www.ifccfbi.gov/ and not answer back their emails.

To help assist anyone that thinks they have been in a dating/marriage scam I will provide several links to various (Russian black list) sites and a picture of Elena Inyutina (as she recently calls herself) on Family-eStore.com website under the (Articles) link, and a follow up to this story. (http://www.russian-detective.com/black_lists/individ/new/lana_donetsk.htm).(http://www.antiscam.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=213&start=0).(http://www.womenrussia.com/blackpage120.htm#pulaeva).(http://www.russian-scam.org/message.htm#iacowleva).(http://www.stop-scammers.com/browseall.asp?p=77).(http://www.inter-mariage.com/fr/phtm/scamlist3.html)

The CBS Evening new report can be found at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/14/eveningnews/main688311.shtml?source=search_story

By: Steven E Coffman
Family-eStore.com