Visa refusal from the United States Embassy in Ghana

My German girlfriend in Accra, Ghana, Africa, has recently been refused a United States visa. After having two previous visas over ten years that were not used

It is definitely possible to be refused a new visa even if the same country has issued you the visas before. Each visa decision is based on one's current circumstances, and if those circumstances now do not warrant the visa issuance, the new visa could be refused.

The United States Consulate person, in a warning letter, then in a meeting, said that my German girlfriend could not reapply.

This also could be true. There are several grounds of inadmissibility to the USA. Some of those grounds (i.e. deception in previous visa applications or being convicted for certain crimes) are effectively permanent.

Is this true?

Here I assume you ask whether this situation is true. Now, a big warning sign here is Ghana, which is one of the well-known sources of scams. Scammers usually don't lie about the country of origin, because at some point later you would be asked to send them money via WesternUnion/Moneygram and those services require specifying the destination country. Since the goal of this kind of scammer is to get money from you, usually for "visa" and "tickets", but also for other expenses from "urgent surgery for Mom" to "attorney for brother to save him from jail", this is important for a scammer.

Saying that, the pattern seem to be NOT typical for a scammer. A typical scammer would not cut off one possible revenue source; instead you'd get a response like "the visa was refused because I did not bring certificate from police, but I was told to reapply immediately and was assured it would be approved - of course the visa fee has to be paid again, and I also need extra $100 for the certificate".

Also another issue here is that it is unclear whether she is German citizen (in which case she does not need visa to visit the US), or "German" is just her ancestry.

However to keep it positive, there is one possible explanation where this would be genuinely the case. This would happen if she came for visa interview and told the Consulate staff that her goal of visiting the US is to get married to you in US and remain there. This is not allowed on a visitor visa, there is a special visa for that for which you, a US citizen, has to petition first. Thus in this case:

• Her visitor visa application would be refused, because she would need a different visa for that; and
• the Consulate would indeed tell her not to reapply, because she would be refused again, and fiancee visa is processed differently.

So there seem to be a possibility that this is legitimate. Then it would matter what she told you she said on the interview, what is written on the actual refusal letter/stamp, and whether you've sent any money there via Western Union.