Refugee solicits help by email; any suggestions?

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Jonah
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Refugee solicits help by email; any suggestions?

Postby Jonah » Mon Jan 30, 2012 9:13 am

I just received this email. Since it does have the appearance of being legit, as suggested by the identification numbers he provides at the end, I'll post it here and see if anyone has any suggestions of an organization to direct him to. As he does not appear to be a Baha'i -- he says only that Baha'is have helped him in the past -- that route is probably not an option. Any ideas? -Jonah

From: Said Safavi, svsafavi@yahoo.com
Date: 2012 January 30

Dear Sir

I am in a desperate need for money and am a refugee in turkey , my case is christianity and I have no family or friends that could have been able to help me financialy , if I had your email address I would have sent you a short film of mine trying to colect some money as a begger in Ankara.

One of my best friend (the only friend) Ata Jafarzadeh who is Bahai was the only person who helped me financialy after he saw the film , he lives in NJ. I must go to the small town name 'kirkkala' and I am already absent according to the locall police, but to settle down there ,I must have at least 1500 Turkish Lir which is $800 to rent the house and necesorry furniture , I am 65 years old and diabetic and UNHCR does not help me at all, I sold my cellphone to buy my pills, and in this very moment I owe my land lord a month of rent (300 TL).

I've sent more than 27 letters to UNHCR and all the affiliated organizations ,I have all the copies, looked for a job all over but it needs work permit, and the UNHCR bylaw does not lead you properly , has lots of contradictions.would you be kind enough to help me out of this hard life?

my phone No: 0090 5372287853 My name : Sald Vazirsafavi My Passport No:11418216 My refugee İD No: 385-11C06554

Truly yours.

BruceDLimber
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Re: Refugee solicits help by email; any suggestions?

Postby BruceDLimber » Tue Jan 31, 2012 8:27 am

FAIR WARNING: There are many such letters around, almost all of them fake letters doing scams REGARDLESS of whether they have "passport numbers" or whatever on the bottom--how would you ever verify those numbers aren't themselves fake??!!!

If you're smart, you'll simply delete the whole email and not bother to bring it to the attention of anyone else (save maybe organizations battling such frauds).

(BTW, these messages are once again appearing in this forum without message numbers. Please correct this. For the record, it's best if the number appears at the top of each message rather than at the bottom. Thanks!)

Bruce

Jonah
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Re: Refugee solicits help by email; any suggestions?

Postby Jonah » Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:38 am

I agree, there's no way to tell if it's real. But it was not a mass-spammed form-mail, as it had the mention of "Baha'i." I don't recommend that anyone send this person any money, of course. Rather, I'm wondering if anyone can suggest an organization we can refer this person to, who might be able to determine (1) if he really is who he says he is and in need, and (2) how to help him. If -- unlikely as it is -- this is real and I don't do what I can,

I do get 5-10 such emails per week through my contact form bahai-library.com/contact; this is the first one that wasn't an obvious scam.

Re the post numbers, Bruce, thanks for the reminder. Every time I update phpBB I need to update a plugin and/or do recoding to make the numbers appear, and I forgot to do it this time. I'll look into it soon.

-Jonah

brettz9
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Re: Refugee solicits help by email; any suggestions?

Postby brettz9 » Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:08 pm

With the RSS feed being down, I haven't noticed messages for a while, so sorry to reply late on this. I believe there still is a dedicated office to refugees in the U.S. Baha'i National Center. While they might not have resources to support more than the needs of the strained Baha'i community, perhaps they might be able to assist in some way.

brettz9
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Re: Refugee solicits help by email; any suggestions?

Postby brettz9 » Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:32 pm

RSS feed is back up again.

danieldemol
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Re: Refugee solicits help by email; any suggestions?

Postby danieldemol » Sat Apr 14, 2012 4:30 pm

It gave me a chuckle that he sold his phone, yet still provides the phone number.

I definitely think it is worth referring it the Baha'i institutions of the local area who would be in a better position to know if and how this person can or should be helped.

Just a small suggestion, when sharing people's emails online publicly like this, it may make sense to remove or replace any personal details with xxxx just on the off chance that they are a sincere person with a sense of privacy.

Kind regards :)

Jonah
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Re: Refugee solicits help by email; any suggestions?

Postby Jonah » Sat Apr 14, 2012 5:48 pm

it may make sense to remove or replace any personal details with xxxx

Absolutely, thanks for mentioning it. My original post should have included note that I posted it online, including email address, with his permission and by request.

-Jonah

BritishBahai
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Re: Refugee solicits help by email; any suggestions?

Postby BritishBahai » Mon Apr 16, 2012 5:33 pm

danieldemol wrote:It gave me a chuckle that he sold his phone, yet still provides the phone number.

I definitely think it is worth referring it the Baha'i institutions of the local area who would be in a better position to know if and how this person can or should be helped.

Just a small suggestion, when sharing people's emails online publicly like this, it may make sense to remove or replace any personal details with xxxx just on the off chance that they are a sincere person with a sense of privacy.

Kind regards :)

Im assuming he meant he sold his handset, and the phone number he provided is probably just a number on which he can be contacted.
"I have desired only what Thou didst desire, and love only what Thou dost love"


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