Odd Customer Inquiry

[Joe Pelonio]

I received this e-mail this morning. It sounds so much like the wording and misspellings of the usual scammers (and is from a Yahoo account) that I hesitate to respond. Can anyone think of a way they could be trying to scam me with a little $75 banner? (Name xx'd out)

To who it may concern

I am Mr. xxxxx xxxxxx I appreciate browsing throught your site. I am looking for " Vinyl banner " to purchase and i believe you do carry some instock for sale. i will apprecite if you can email me back with the price on 30 by 60 vinyl banner with just the letters to say Happy Annivesiry .

would be much grateful if you would e-mail me back with the pick up price so that i can go ahead and place the order.and i will like to know the term of payment that you accept .
hope to hear from you soon . so that i can go ahead and place the order. and the term of payment that you accept and i can o..

This order is a special order and i would like to deal with the owner of the store
directly. I would be looking forward to hear favourable from you soon.

Thanks
xxxxxx ...

[Matt Meiser]

Sure sounds fishy to me. I wonder if they are trying to build your trust for a later scam? Then again, it could be legit and just someone who's first language is not english.

[James Stokes]

It is a scam. I have seen it before.

[Eric James]

It's a scam they are on all of the sign forums.

[Joe Pelonio]

Thanks, it sounded like a scam but for such a small amount hardly seems worth the trouble.

[Craig Hogarth]

How does this become a scam?

[Scott Shepherd]

I've seen a little about it online as well. Apparently they do want the banner. You ship it and the credit card used is stolen. So in the end, you don't get paid for it and they get the product.

Also, any reply to these types of emails will almost certainly get your email address listed as a valid address and they'll freely post it on spam sites to harvest.

[Joe Pelonio]

I've seen a little about it online as well. Apparently they do want the banner. You ship it and the credit card used is stolen. So in the end, you don't get paid for it and they get the product.

Also, any reply to these types of emails will almost certainly get your email address listed as a valid address and they'll freely post it on spam sites to harvest.
Thanks, Scott, I wondered too. Unfortunately when your e-mail is on your website it's a target for spammers even without the validation of an answer. I have a personal e-mail that gets a spam once or twice a month, my business one I get 10 a day plus another 10+ that are caught by the spam blocker. With that I sometimes have real customer e-mails caught by accident so have to check the spam file often.

[Eric James]

They don't care about the product, it is something in the way the shipping is payed for that they make their money. Somebody on another board messed with them for awhile the story was funny. He told them the banners were several thousand dollars and that was fine with them, and he jerked them around some more.

[Joe Pelonio]

I guess they have to find a lot of suckers to make money. At least when they do it to people selling cars there's thousands involved. I ran into a lot of them when selling my '72 El Camino, that's why it sounded familiar. Some woman near here fell for it on a boat, lost $4,000 on the "shipping" money when she sent it after cashing a bogus cashier's check from the scammer.