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I am trying to find information on Donald John Raymond from 81/82 mountain biew place Newark NJ. He has been writting to me and wants to marry me but can not find information about him on the net. what should i do as he is coming out here to meet me in 3 weeks with his 21 year old son called James?

Submitted: 291 days and 7 hours ago.

Category: General

Value: $13

Status: CLOSED

Hello and thank you for your question.

81/82 Mountain View Place, Newark, NJ is a real address, but the only names I could find associated with that address belong to people with the last names of Benjamin and Cooper.
This does not necessarily mean that this person has been untruthful with you, as online directories are not always complete or up to date.
There is at least one Donald J. XXXXXXX XXving in that general area of NJ, though not listed as living in Newark, but again these online sources are not always up to date.
There are many James Raymonds living in NJ. I was not able to conclusively link a James Raymond to a Donald Raymond in the general Newark area, but these are fairly common names so this is really not conclusive one way or the other.

Of course it is always critical to take some basic safety precautions when meeting someone for the first time.
It's very easy for people to misrepresent themselves online.

Before you meet this person, be sure to talk on the phone first.
Meet in a very public place - like a coffee shop or bookstore. Have your own transportation, so that you do not need to get into a car with the person or share your address with him.
Make sure that other people know where you are going and who you are meeting, and have them check in with you to make sure you are safe.

I am providing a link to an article about safety in meeting people online and in real life: http://www.webupon.com/Security/Internet-Safety-and-Using-Sound-Judgment-in-Meeting-People-Online.31717

I would advise you to trust your instincts. If something seems fishy or makes you uneasy, you may want to hold off on meeting.
And take things slow. If you've never met then try to keep your anticipations in check, and see where things go. Get to know the person and feel comfortable with hiim before making further plans for the future.

I hope this information is helpful, and if so please click the green ACCEPT icon so that I can get credit for my answer.
Feel free to ask additional related questions.
Thank you.

Accepts:
Expert:	MJ
Pos. Feedback:	100.0 %
Answered:	2/5/2009

Researcher, Artist, Architect

Licensed Architect, Artist, Collector, Former Design College Faculty, Ivy League Masters

289 days and 9 hours ago.

Reply

I have already found out this information myself. He has a company called Donald (edited for privacy) Does this information help in my search. I have been a little confrontational with him lately and he has gone quiet on me.

Edited by Lori on 2/7/2009 at 12:03 AM

Posted by MJ 289 days and 9 hours ago.

Answer

Hello XXXXXXXXXXX,

Thank you for all the additional information. Clearly you've done a lot of research, and this should be helpful in searching for any additional information on this person.

As I said above - and as you have most likely found yourself - there do not seem to be any public records connecting a Donald John Raymond to the NJ address that you provided. Do you know anything more about his connection to this address (Did he tell you that he owns this property? Or is renting? Or staying with friends or relatives?)

Additionally, as I mentioned above, there are a number of Donald Raymonds in this general area of New Jersey. But now that you have provided the age of your Mr. Raymond, it does not appear that this matches the age of any of the Donald Raymonds in that area.
Of course it is concerning when you mentioned that he is currently in Nigeria, as this is where a great portion of internet scams originate, and I can understand your concern in confirming his identity.

I did some research on the business name that you provided. Contractors are required to be registered in New Jersey by the Division of Consumer Affairs. There is no record there of a contractor by the name of Donald Raymond, nor is there a business registered with this name. Here is a link to this department: http://www.state.nj.us/lps/ca/highlights.htm You may wish to contact them yourself to confirm this information.

In order to best help you further, could you tell me specifically what type of additional information you're looking for? And, have you been able to reach him in the past on the cell phone number you provided? How does he generally get in touch with you?

MJ

Edited by MJ on 2/7/2009 at 12:09 AM

289 days and 6 hours ago.

Reply

thank you for your help so far. I met him on match.com where he contacted me and we started to send e-mails, his e-mail address is XXXXX@XXXXXX.XXX, we then started talking on a chat line. And yes I have contacted him on that mobile number before. At the time he was in London on a job. It seems that he travelles with work a lot. He came to Australia and New Zealand 9 months ago and liked it out here, and decided to look for a wife to retire with in Australia.
I think I have been taken for a ride, and thank goodness for friends that allerted me to the fact that they couldn't find anything on him. I was hoping to find out if he is real and if his story is true. can you tell me if there was a wife and a son called James. can't find anything about him either, it's like they don't exist.

Accepted Answer

Hello XXXXXXXXXXX,

As I mentioned previously, while there are people by this name in NJ that could be this son "James", I am not able to find any conclusive link between a James and a Donald of the appropriate ages.
One problem is that these names are so common that without records like birth certificates and marriage licenses it is not possible to establish whether any of these specific people exist. If you are indeed being deceived, it's pretty common for people to choose false names that are fairly common, as it makes this type of investigation more difficult. It's also pretty common for a scammer to give a work history that is not easily verifiable - such as claiming to be self-employed, working out of the country, etc.
There is a limit to what I'm able to find without access to birth, death, and marriage records. Those types of records are all public information - but they're difficult to find without knowing the county in which the births, etc. occurred.

I am also having some difficulties because it is JustAnswer's policy to block personal information - such as phone numbers, email addresses, etc., in order to protect privacy (and I believe that this is a good policy.) So some of the information that you have provided has been blocked or removed, so I cannot search based on that information.

Frankly, I believe that your friends are right to be concerned.
None of the information that you've provided has been readily verifiable (his address, age, business name, etc.). There could certainly be valid reasons why this information would not show up readily (he could be using a mailing address of a friend, his business could be registered in a different state or based in a different country, etc.), but so much information leading to so many dead ends definitely raises concerns in my mind. Most real people are pretty easy to turn up in a concerted internet search, so whenever so many different difficulties emerge it raises some red flags.

I want to reiterate that you must take the precautions that I advised in my first answer, regarding meeting this person in a public place, etc.
Also, be wary of any requests for money, plane tickets, etc. (Sometimes people are approached on online dating sites by people who eventually promise to visit them, and then call or email with stories of difficulties: they supposedly get robbed while traveling, or they get into an accident, or some such story, for which they tell you they need immediate funds...)
I urge you: do not, under any circumstances, send any money to this person or to his son, for any reason. And if you do receive such a request, report it to police and also to these sites:
The National Consumer League's Fraud Center: http://www.fraud.org/ and at the Internet Crime Complaint Center here: www.IC3.gov (another expert alerted me to this link and recommends it highly.)

Due to the privacy policies on JustAnswer, I don't think there is much more that I will be able to do to verify this man's personal information for you (any phone number, email address, birth date, etc. is likely to be blocked.) The best I can tell you is that he isn't showing up anywhere based on any of the information you've provided thus far.
So your options at this point would be: continue your conversations with Donald - with great caution and taking every safety measure - and see how this pans out; or cease contact with him; or hire a local private investigator to attempt to verify his information for you, and make a decision based on the outcome.

I do hope this information has been helpful, and if so I ask you to please click the green "ACCEPT" icon so that I can receive credit for my answer.
I'll be happy to continue to discuss the general issues.
Thank you.

Edited by MJ on 2/7/2009 at 4:13 AM

Accepts:
Expert:	MJ
Pos. Feedback:	100.0 %
Answered:	2/7/2009

Researcher, Artist, Architect

Licensed Architect, Artist, Collector, Former Design College Faculty, Ivy League Masters

289 days and 3 hours ago.

Reply

I have just accepted and paid my money.
I am going to attempt to give you his phone number and e mail address using shashes between the numbers hope you can use these. I know this is against your policy but I really need some definate answers. (edited for privacy)and his e mail is (edited for privacy). I really hope this will help you

Edited by Lindie-Moderator on 2/7/2009 at 6:47 AM

289 days and 3 hours ago.

Reply

I have just accepted and paid my money.
I am going to attempt to give you his phone number and e mail address using shashes between the numbers hope you can use these. I know this is against your policy but I really need some definate answers. (edited for privacy) and his e mail is (edited for privacy). I really hope this will help you

It seems that i have paid you twice this is a mistake on my part, can one of these be cancelled please

Edited by Lindie-Moderator on 2/7/2009 at 6:45 AM

Posted by MJ 289 days and 2 hours ago.

Answer

Thank you very much for the Accept.
Yes, I'll report that you paid twice by accident and try to get that reversed for you.

I'll have to ask the moderators to remove the phone number and email address - it's against the site's policy to post personal information (and if I don't report it some other expert will.)

All I can tell you about that email address is that it is an existing hotmail address, as you knew, and that it does not appear in any searches of any other sites.
This really does not mean much one way or the other, because anybody can make up any hotmail address. Hotmail does not verify any personal information when you sign up for an address - so it's basically anonymous.

The country code in the phone number that you provided is the code for the UK (it's not the code for Australia, as I think you'd previously mentioned you'd been told.) But beyond that I have not been able to trace the phone number to any individual.
Again, this is not particularly significant, because cell phone numbers in general aren't typically listed in directories, and are treated as unlisted.

I hope that this helps.

MJ

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I am trying to find information on Donald John Raymond from 81/82 mountain biew place Newark NJ. He has been writting to me and wants to marry me but can not find information about him on the net. what should i do as he is coming out here to meet me in 3 weeks with his 21 year old son called James?

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I have already found out this information myself. He has a company called Donald (edited for privacy) Does this information help in my search. I have been a little confrontational with him lately and he has gone quiet on me.Edited by Lori on 2/7/2009 at 12:03 AM

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I have already found out this information myself. He has a company called Donald (edited for privacy) Does this information help in my search. I have been a little confrontational with him lately and he has gone quiet on me.

Edited by Lori on 2/7/2009 at 12:03 AM