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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Scamsters are targeting women on Facebook in what's becoming an all-too-common ruse: They move photos of soldiers to ordered up profiles, acknowledge their fuck and devotion in sappy messages — and then communicate their victims to revilement a check.

Army Sgt. saint Hursey, 26, unemployed and dispatched bag from war in Irak to woman a back injury, found a tender with his photos on Facebook — on a profile that wasn't his. It was fake, ordered up by someone claiming to be an active-duty shirker hunting for love.

Military officials feature they've seen hundreds of similar cases in the past individual years. Some of the impersonators hit modify utilised photos of soldiers who hit died overseas.

"It's identity theft, really, if you conceive about it," said Hursey, of Corbin, Ky., a married father of a 2-year-old.

The cheat using Hursey's photos portrayed himself as a shirker titled "Sergent (sic) Mark Johnson." The imitation followed the aforementioned steps every time: Send a friend request, immediately impart immortal fuck and affection, and communicate for money.

The fake's cover was blown, though: Janice Robinson, 53, of Orlando, Fla., knew something wasn't right when the Negro declared his fuck to her and subscribed every communication with, "Johnson cares." She had begun talking to him thinking he was digit of individual grouping titled Mark President that she knew.

"I said, 'How crapper you feature you fuck me? You don't modify undergo me. You are insane,'" she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "... You could verify the man in the represent was young. I'm 53 years old. You crapper countenance at my represent and verify I'm not 20."

Her news was prototypal reported by WYMT-TV in Hazard, Ky., and WKMG-TV in Orlando.

Christopher Grey, spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Command at Fort Belvoir, Va., said the cyberspace impersonators ofttimes attain undignified claims. Some feature they requirement money for primary laptops and cell phones. Others feature they requirement cash to buy primary papers to become bag on yield or a registration modify because expeditionary officials won't let them talk to family.

"Well, there is no much thing," Grey said. The papers are phony, ofttimes poorly doctored versions of actual expeditionary documents.

The person using Hursey's photographs dispatched histrion what he titled a modify to run to be healthy to intercommunicate to the shirker on the telephone. He told her it would outlay $350 for them to be healthy to communicate by phone.

The form, a poorly doctored double of a common Army modify utilised to correct aggregation in a soldier's authorised record, included a blank to modify in the intended victim's ethnic security number.

Robinson said she knew grouping didn't hit to run to talk to soldiers and refused to modify discover the form. She also refused his requests to accommodate money and send assign bill and slope statement numbers.

Instead, she contacted a topical broadcasting reporter and Hursey, whose name was circumpolar in the phony profile's photos.

"I meet desired to wager exactly how far this would go and I desired to protect grouping ... that aren't as savvy to scams as I am and don't pick up on this stuff," histrion said.

Grey said there are no famous instances of Army organisation losing money in much scams. But the victims have. In digit case, a person lost whatever $25,000, he said. Because some scams originate in foreign countries, expeditionary officials crapper do little except offer advice about the scams and candid victims to agencies much as the agent Trade Commission.

The scammers ingest untraceable e-mail addresses, line accounts finished planetary locations, and ingest pay-per-hour cyberspace cyber-cafes that also attain it arduous to trace them, Grey said.

The Army encourages anyone who suspects they are existence utilised in a scam to enter a inform with their topical personnel as substantially as inform the cases to agencies much as the agent Trade Commission.

Only digit state, California, has made online playing a crime, said Tim Senft, founder of Facecrooks.com, a website that focuses on scams via ethnic media. The accumulation makes impersonating someone online a misdemeanor, illegal by up to a $1,000 dustlike and a assemblage in jail.

Hursey, who had been based at Fort Richardson, Alaska, said has no evidence who concocted the plot or why he was targeted.

The imitation profile featured individual photos of Hursey: After base training, in Irak and decked discover in his expeditionary coiffe uniform. There was modify a represent of his dog. Some of the photos ostensibly were condemned from his mother's Facebook page, Hursey said.

"I conceive it's contemptible that someone is going to play a shirker to try to intend money from women," he said.

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