Another scam attempt using my identity—this time unsuccessful

My scammer body double is at it again, trying to sell a car to a woman in Germany. The woman, whom I’ll call Maddie, contacted me today on Facebook, saying: “Dear Paul! I was about to buy a car and was contacted by “Fekete Zsolt Akos,” who obviously stole your identity. He sent me a passport (which was photoshopped) and some of your pictures. Thanks to Google, I found (with the pictures) your blog and read about your identity theft.”

Maddie sent me a copy of the passport, which shows a handsome middle-aged man (okay, okay, an average-looking elderly man). It is a copy of my passport, but most of the vital information has been changed, including the place of birth, which now reads Roma. The other photos she received have been copied from my blog.

Maddie lives in Berlin, and she explained that the scammer “writes me Whattsapp messages and tries to sell me a car. I asked him to send me a picture of him and the car. Maybe now he smells a rat. He writes from a German number and writes in (not fluent) German. He says he’s a doctor, living in Rome.”

I printed out the fake passport photo, along with a copy of my correspondence with Maddie (who also gave me both her number and the number being used by the scammer) and took them to Carabinieri Marshall Ratta this afternoon. He wrote up an additional report to add to my previous denuncia.

In the best of all worlds, the Italian and German police will now work together on a sting operation, contacting the scammer by using his German number and pretending to be interested in buying a car. They’ll then cleverly lure him into a meeting and nab him, forever clearing my good name! Nei miei sogni (in my dreams)!

Actually, Marshall Ratta told me that since the person being contacted is in Germany and the scammer is using a German phone card, the Italian police probably won’t do anything about this current complaint. I doubt that they’d successfully be able to trick the scammer into coming out in the open anyway.

However, this new incident may serve to bolster my case with the Agenzia dell’Entrate down the road, and I’m also happy to see that my recent blog entries about my identity theft helped warn Maddie away from a fraudulent purchase. Thanks also to Google, which allows people to do an image search by dragging and dropping a photo. That’s how Maddie found my blog. Who knows what will come next?
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See also: A high stakes challenge: I must fight the Italian IRS and
Slow progress in the case of my identity theft.