The Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai scam turns up on my door step. I was doing like the song says - drinking meh water and minding my business" when I got a birthday greeting on my LinkedIn page from the person purporting to be Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum aka Fazza the poet, the Crown Prince of Dubai!
1st red flag was that Sheikh was in the wrong place. It was placed after the 2nd name in his long list of names. Sheikh is at the beginning of the names on his official LinkedIn profile.
2nd red flag was when Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum LinkedIn profile disappeared after he gave me his email address so as to chat on Google Chat. Out of curiosity I asked him how come he chose me on LinkedIn. He said that my profile was suggested. Hmmm... ok.. I realized that this was time for a "game of chess". I wanted to see just how far Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum was going to go and what new tactics were going to be used to extract money. This is in preparation for the book that I am going to write and put on Kindle by the end of the year also for my column in the newspaper.
3rd red flag - Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum says that everything that is communicated between the two of us must be confidential as he is a Crown Prince and a Crown Prince does not lie. Really?? At this point Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum has to start building my trust. He started sending me poems every morning and then the above photo. I went to Tineye which gave me the following message - TinEye searched over 62.0 billion images but didn't find any matches for your search image. I was not surprised because it took me just about 3 years to find a match to some photos that
were being sent to me. The interesting thing about the photos was that they were on the social media accounts of the actual persons but that is a story for another day.
4th red flag - you have to look out for the victim role that is usually played early in the whole scenario. Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum's victim role was that he was married to a woman that he did not love, he was lonely and being a Crown Prince it was difficult for him going out on the town in order to meet women. He wanted to find someone who can be by his side and provide support to him.
5th red flag - if someone who is younger than I am tells me that age is just a number. He is looking for a sugar mama.
6th red flag - this one always blows my mind. Did a google call for 1/2 a second and Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum tells me - but I called you. Calling him back was not possible and forget about calling during the day time or weekends. The only time that Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum would come on to chat was late in the evening, which was very late, wherever he was located. Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum said that his father told him never to do video calls.
7th red flag - conversations started to get shorter. Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum would never elaborate on how his day went or what charity organizations he visited for the day. I was doing my research on the internet so asking questions became difficult for him. This would mean that he would have to do additional work to go get the answers. He actually asked me - "why all the questions".
8th red flag - In an attempt to appear legitimate Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum sent me to the following website -www.almaktouminitiatives.org/en and asked that I look at it. He then gave me an email address (support@mbrglobalintiative.com) to send an email to asking about membership to the foundation. But something was wrong with the email address. An "i" was missing from the word "initiative". After much research on the domain name mbrglobalintiative.com I discovered that the domain name was created in July 2023. When I asked about the error in the word initiative he said not to worry. The email was being used for a very long time. This was definitely a HUGE red flag. I also discovered that the domain with the correct spelling of the word initiative was available. If you see the error in the email below, say "I got it" in the comments box.
9th flag - the 1st email that I received from the email address provided was an autoresponder email. The 2nd email was a request for money email with the membership form. I started to laugh🤣🤣🤣🤣... This was a new one for me. The money is no little bit of money that is being requested. Well, I am not in a hurry to go to Dubai any time soon anyway. When I texted and said that I did not have any money to take out the membership, the response that I got was one of disappointment. Communication has now dried up. That is ok. Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum realise that I was on to his game. It is my hope that this post reaches millions of people before they hand over money to Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The relevant authorities should be putting out notices on their various websites advising people not to get caught. Unless they subscribe to the saying - a fool and his money will soon be parted.
ScamHaters United on Facebook is a great place to check for the faces that people like Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum uses to get money from unsuspecting victims. It was just by chance that I came across the Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum scam on their page.
I hope that this post will save someone, who reads it from the stress of what Hamdan Bin Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum will put them through now and in the future.
A few days ago I got a scam email from Geek Squad saying that my subscription was due for renewal. I called the number on the email and the person who answered had an Indian accent. He wanted me to log in to their website but when he started to give me the address of the website, I wrote it down and then realized that the website address did not make sense. So I told him that I will get the bank to cancel all my credit cards. He tried to dissuade me from taking that action but when I realized his game I just hung up. So be careful.
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