Is "teabonics" fake?

[Final-Fan]

Kasz216 said:

Final-Fan said:

Kasz216 said:

Final-Fan said:

I can accept that they might not report it as its own story, although I'd be surprised if they kept such information completely to themselves.  However, I'd think there would be planty of opportunities to put it in as part of a larger piece on this topic, or just throw it out there as one of those unexciting facts on the Internet on their blog or whatever.  The fact is that you are ASSUMING this was in fact investigated and the result was negative.  You have no basis for that beyond your assertion "it would be easy to check this and a journalist would be very interested in doing so".  And I remain unconvinced that it would be as easy as you imply.  The guy who would have gotten the money is in Kenya, and the money in the States could have come from any number of sources. 

People would say "look at them, they are so desperate to believe it's a conspiracy that they got duped by an African email scam"?

And seriously.  I'm not either, but I think it's highly likely that the money would burn a hole right through this guy's pocket if he's a scammer, and as you implied with your statistics they'd be unlikely to recover the funds through wage garnishing etc. even supposing they got through the fuss of international prosecution and so on. 

So... you don't think it'd be easy to investigate... but you think the money would be burning a hole in his pocket.

You're proving my point that it'd be easy to investigate right there.

If a guy who makes $250 a year suddenly starts spending thousands of dollars I think that'd send up a red flag or two don't you?  How hard would it really be to take a flight, or even get a local reporter to check up on the guys spending habits?

I'm not saying he wouldn't leave a trail, I'm saying it's most assuredly a non-trivial effort involved in tracking it down, compared to something like getting a police report of the accident that I presume is public domain. 

The fact is that you are ASSUMING this was in fact investigated and that the result was negative. 

And what do you think about my assertion that he would very very likely never see that money again even if he could manage to get Kenya to successfully prosecute the guy? 

Once again it's a matter of not knowing how Kenya works.  I mean, when your average countryman makes 250 dollars a year...  chances are even with him spending like crazy, he's still got a good chunk of that money left.

Outside that, you wouldn't want the guy who ripped you off to go to jail?  Even if you can't get the money back?

I'm pretty sure he could have spent and/or otherwise distributed the great majority of the money by the time he got nabbed. 

And that's NOT THE QUESTION YOU ASKED ME.  "If you were conned with a forgery... you wouldn't want your money back?"