Man seeking love finds Nigerian scam.

Byline: Rebecca Nolan The Register-Guard

A 55-year-old Eugene man looking for romance became an unwitting participant in an international scam to ship goods purchased online with stolen credit cards to Nigeria via Europe.

Dubbed the "Nigerian repackaging scam" by law enforcement, the scheme aims to bypass restrictions of overseas shipping companies such as FedEx, DHL and UPS - which limit shipments to west Africa because of pervasive fraud - by finding gullible Americans to serve as intermediaries.

The victims receive the stolen goods - often unaware of their origins - and send them on to Europe, where other scammers receive and ship them to Nigeria, Eugene police financial crimes Sgt. Terry Fitzpatrick said.

The scammers usually promise to reimburse the Americans for their shipping expenses, but the money never arrives.

Despite years of warnings about similar schemes - many involve people claiming to be from Nigeria - people continue to fall for the scams, often losing thousands of dollars in the process.

"It's one of two things - either they're very, very naive or they're very greedy," Fitzpatrick said. "Some people want to get something for nothing. The old adage, `If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,' really applies in these cases."

The Eugene victim was lured into the scheme by a woman he met on the Internet, Fitzpatrick said. They struck up an online friendship, and soon the woman was talking about marriage and moving to Eugene to be with him.

Eventually she asked the man to help her send some packages to England. Smitten, he agreed, and she provided instructions for repackaging the goods and sending them on to Europe, where many companies are more lenient about shipments to Nigeria.

An online retailer based in Austin, Texas, alerted local investigators to the scam before the Eugene man completed a shipment, Fitzpatrick said. The man, who lives in the Barger Drive area, allowed Eugene detectives to read his e-mail correspondence with his would-be sweetheart and fully cooperated with police.

Fitzpatrick sent the case on to the FBI, which has investigated similar international scams in the past. At a recent fraud symposium, an FBI agent showed slides of warehouses in Nigeria stocked with computers, microwaves and other electronics stolen and shipped the same way, Fitzpatrick said.

Scammers find their victims on the Internet or through "Work at Home" advertise- ments.

"They offer you a job repackaging and mailing things for, say, $6,000 a month," Fitzpatrick said. "After you mail a whole bunch of things, they send you a check and, of course, it's bogus."

People often go several months before they realize they've been had, he said.

"We're just hoping to get the message out there so more people don't get victimized," he said.