Anatomy of a scam

[Craig Hogarth]

I get scammer emails every once in a while and usually ignore them. I was always curious how it worked, so I decided to go along with one.

I get an email from Reverend Bill Huffman, who says he lives in my local area. He wants (100) 8 x 9.75 inch plaques with brass plate. He will be picking them up at my location. I quote him $40 each and he says he's fine with it. I email back saying the total price for 100 plaques is $8,000 and I require 50% at order, remainder at pickup. He's fine with the 8k and says that he can pay 100% at order. But unfortunately, he had an emergency that required him to go to london for the next 4 weeks and won't be able to pick it up. He asks me to contact his shipping company via email as they will be picking it up to be shipped to his charity in Ghana. I email the shipping company with the weight (approx 2500 lbs) and they reply that the shipping will be $5800. Since there's required paperwork that I must sign for shipment, the only person that can be billed is me. Once I pay the $5800, they will come the following day for pickup. I email Bill Huffman explaining that I will have to charge him $5800 for shipping along with an additional $1500 for my document signing fee. The total is now $15,300 and hes' fine with that. He gives me three credit card numbers asking me to split it evenly across all three. He told me to charge him immediately and contact the shipping company for payment to ensure they get a spot on the plane for his shipment. I told him I was going to charge his card and start working on his order. I stopped emailing him after that and he's only emailed once to see when I was going to pay his shipper.

During the entire time, I was playing around with him, trying to throw him for loops. We never talked about what he wanted on the plaques. When he said he was in london, I told him my wife was there as well and her father owns an engraving shop where he could easily do the work for him. I tested reactions between the "shipper" and "customer" by telling them totally different things. I totally messed up numbers, prices and weights. None seemed to care.

[Bill Morrison]

Love it, sounds like it was fun.

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

I'm sure he's also willing to pay you by signing over a check he got from some foreign dictator that's trying to escape his country with his personal fortune; but since the check is for more than he would owe you, you'll have to send him a treasurer's check for the difference....

[Joe Pelonio]

I wonder if that's the same reverend that wanted me to make him 500 banners?

[Brian Robison]

Anyone else out there get this?


Dear sales,

I will like a price quote and availability of the item below:

1000 PCS OF .025" x 12" x 24" - Bright Gold Aluminum Plate.

I will forward my credit card details for payment as soon as I receive the price quote.

Excluding the shipping cost,i will arrange for pick-up as soon as the order is process.

Awaiting your swift response.

Regards,
Bode Seaman.

504 Live Oak Ave.
Baytown,Tx,

[Joe Pelonio]

Perhaps the downside to the popularity of Sawmill Creek is that scammers are googling to find small business victims and we pop up. Hopefully most of us are smart enough to know a scam when we see it. BTW I got two emails today offering me several million from a dead guy with no next of kin in other countries.

[Jack Harper]

Creig,

At the risk of sounding a little naive, what was the scam? Were the credit card numbers stolen? Obviously you would not have paid the shipper or produced the job unless the credit cards cleared the processor.

[Craig Hogarth]

Jack, the credit card numbers are either stolen or fictitious. Since the address provided was the same for all three cards, I'll assume it's not a real number. There's a mathmetical formula used to determine credit card numbers and it can take weeks before they card processing company figures it out.

[Jack Harper]

That is interesting. I thought when I keyed in the numbers into say paypal and get an authorization code back, that that meant it was real. I realize that would not indicate if it were stolen and yet to be reported.

[Craig Hogarth]

I don't know exactly how they're doing it, but i'm assuming if I ran the card numbers this guy gave me, it would give me an approval. At that point, if not award it was a scam, I would go ahead and pay the shipping company. Eventually, the money from the credit card transaction would be taken out of my account.

There was a thread here a while back about this. As I recall, one of the SMC'ers knew a gentleman that lost 30k on a scam similar to this when he shipped out a bunch of electronics after getting a fake card number approval.

[Dan Hintz]

Craig,

When I have (had?) the time, I'll screw with these guys for weeks/months. With one guy, I had him salivating so badly that he was hitting such a dupe that he would have done almost anything. In the end, I laughed at him, told him I'm so happy I wasted so much of his time that could have been spent cheating others, and asked him now who feels like the mugu (roughly translated, it means "big fool", what they call all of their marks, particularly the stereotypical white American). Fraud is so rampant (and the payoffs so big) in Nigeria, a musician named Owoh made a long-played #1 single called "I Go Chop Your Dollars", extolling the virtues of stealing the money from such easy marks as us.

Sometimes, certain people just need to be removed from the human race in a most painful fashion.


Jack, the card numbers are typically stolen (not made up, as Craig suggested) through viruses, unscrupulous e-merchants passing on your info, data mining, bank data losses, etc. The smarter ones will change the card's billing/shipping address, but not always. By the time the CC company or CC owner figures out what's up (often 30-60 days or more), you've already shipped the product. Once shipped, they can have it sent directly to them through the re-shipping companies mentioned earlier, but more often they have it shipped somewhere in the US (a holding house where the tenant knows what's going on and their only job is to accept and reship packages). In the latter case, there's still not much you can do about it, as proven by the fact that most of the reship houses continue to operate, even though the FBI, postal service, etc. has undeniable proof they're receiving fraudulent shipments.

This is only part of the reason companies like iPayment have been sending out notices saying they're going to start charging $20/month to have a company ensure your CC data is safe from prying eyes (what a crock!).

[Dave West]

Most of these 'Advance Payment' scams originate in Nigeria. These are known internationally as "4-1-9" fraud, after the section of the Nigerian penal code which addresses fraud schemes.
There is a site called 419 Eater where they bait these theives and waste their time and resources to hopefully keep them away from potential victims. http://www.419eater.com/index.htm

Dave

[David Fairfield]

That www.419eater.com (http://www.419eater.com) website is one of the Internet's Greatest Hits. I just about died laughing when I saw it the first time. :D

[Bill Cunningham]

I got a email like that from some Rev. BillyBob or something similar in Calif. When someone just pops up out of the blue, and wants a HUGE order, a red flag better go up, or your scam bait. When using credit cards on the web, the merchant is taking ALL the risk.. a Authorization code means nothing in regards to payment, and the bank WILL charge back your account for fraudulent transactions, even if they have authorized it..

[John Barton]

We get these all time - I want to buy 1000 of your t-shirts, cues, etc...

I read once about a guy who reversed it on them and got the scammer to send thousands of dollars worth of African "art" to him.

what an absolute waste a human soul these people are.

--- actually, since I use Gmail I practically never see these anymore but I still get dozens of them daily. Google's database on these creeps must be huge.

[Lee DeRaud]

--- actually, since I use Gmail I practically never see these anymore but I still get dozens of them daily.To which I say, "Huh?!?":confused:

[Sean Bullock]

Very interesting thread.

So, what is the best way to verify that an order is legitimate? I get people contacting me all the time through my website and never expected any of them would be trying to scam me.

[Craig Hogarth]

This is the first email I got from the guy I made this post about.

Hello.I start with much Greetings to you and your whole company.Please accept my apology if i have reached a wrong contact, my name is rev. bill huffman.I will like to know if you have wood plaque can you get me this type of plaque Engraved marble wooden plaque is very popular. The coat of arms is engraved on a plate that has a marble appearance. These personalized wooden plaques are made from Solid Walnut. The size of this decorative wall plaque is 8" X 9.75" and will enhance the décor of most rooms. Choose from: Blue, Red, Gray, Green, or Flat Black. The marble background colors AND I ASLO WANT TO KNOW DO YOU ACCEPT CREDIT CARD PAYMENT KINDLY GET BACK TO ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
best regards
rev. bill huffman

Generally, you can tell by the way they approach you. Normal customers don't make request such as this. For this one, as most, they are very interested if you take credit cards.

[Scott Shepherd]

The one's I have been getting recently say "I want to purchase something off of your online store, please let me know how much the total is....." blah blah blah.

That's funny. I don't have an online store :)

[Dan Hintz]

Some clues to help people recognize the scammers (these are not hard and fast rules, but are often seen...feel free to add your own):

1) Their English grammar is quite poor, though it is good enough to make reasonable sense. The really good ones will have quality translators put together the emails for them, but there are still tell-tale signs.

2) They often appear quite spiritual in their emails, saying things like "God bless", "My Christian brother/sister", etc. Calling themselves a Reverend is a new one on me.

3) They use words like "kindly", "please", "friend", etc., but not in the way a typical native English speaker might place it in a sentence.

4) Even though you have an e-cart that will show what 'x' number of items will cost, they still request a quote (but they don't request a discount for a large order). Same deal with shipping charges.

5) In relation to 4, they will totally ignore any and all warnings you have on your webpage/e-cart about not shipping to Nigeria and surrounding countries... mostly because they never take the time to read your website or even look at the e-cart.

6) Payments are often made by credit card, though it's still fairly common to see requests to pay by Western Union check and the like. If the order is large and it's being paid by credit card, they will want to split the bill up across multiple cards.
a) When paid by credit card, they want the order shipped using the fastest possible method. This gives the banks/you little time to make the connection before the item is out of your hands.
b) When paid by check, they typically want to set up a shipping company to pick up the order for the reasons I mentioned in an earlier post.

7) Wait a day or two when replying, and change their name on the email (both in your reply and in their copied email). If they reply back using the name you just invented, you're obviously dealing with a scammer.

8) They will apologize a lot in their emails, particularly if they feel like they're going to get somewhere with you but you are acting wary. They want to put your mind at ease. The dumb ones used to get really nasty, as if they could bully you into working with them, but I think they realized this isn't Nigeria and we'll just ignore them, so I haven't seen that in quite a while.

9) If you're really lucky, they'll ask for items that were never listed on your site... when dealing with so many mugus, they start to get them confused, like a guy with three mistresses. If you question them about their order but don't give confirmation about what you do sell, they will often (stupidly) ask you what products you sell.

10) More to come if I think of them....

[Doug Griffith]

Here's one that I've personally seen:

There's an item on eBay currently going for less than what it's worth. At $10 worth $200 with $2 increments.

You put in a bid of $200 that bumps the auction price up to $12.

Near the auction end, another bidder places multiple small bids until they become the winning bidder. Now the price is $202.

Just before the auction ends, the item description changes.

Right after that, the other $202 winning bidder retracts using the description change as the excuse.

Right after that, they bid again just under $200 minus the $2 increment.

They know they are not going to win the auction but they found out your maximum bid which you will now pay.

This has a name for it that I can't recall but it is done by unscrupulous sellers. It's hard to catch unless you know what your looking for.

Also, now that eBay hides bidder details, it's even harder to catch.

Report it if you see it.

[Calvin Hobbs]

Here is the one I got a while back:

I am Staff Sgt.Jane Usaa,i'm embedded with Logistics Unit,Balad Air Base North of Baghdad Iraq,i got you while going through your website,I'm interested in buying your Philadelphia dressing table.
PRODUCT DETAILS: 31 1/4" H x 35"W x 21"D


QUANTITY:3 units
Kindly get back to me if it is available and total cost price for this items.

My shipping Address:
Staff Sgt Jane Usaa
U.S. Army War College
Public Affairs Office
122 Forbes Avenue
Carlisle,PA 17013-5234

Thanks
Staff Sgt Jane Usaa
Logistics Unit
Balad Air Base,
North of Baghdad Iraq


What is scary is that I don't have a business or anything and I don't have any items for sale on the web. And of course who wouldn't want someone giving them a huge order. I really wanted it to be true, which I knew it wasn't. I responded with a quote and several questions and it was cleary an overpayment scam, here was the 2nd email:

I have recieved your quoted price and i think i'm ok with it. before leaving i left instructions and a check of $19,000 for a similar items which was unfortunately sold by the artist. so i have informed our financial department in P.A to now issue out the cashiers'check in your Name.payment will be made in full.
Confirm this and provide Name,Address and Phone Number of which the check payment will be sent to you via registered mail.
Thanks
Staff Sgt. Jane Usaa




I feel sorry for the many people who are taken advantage of. Cal

[Joe Pelonio]

Here's the last Nigerian Scam I got, earlier this week. It's hard to imagine people falling for it but they do all the time:

Subj: HELLO////===== Date: 5/2/08 4:46:50 PM Pacific Daylight Time From: officeline79@spray.se Reply-to: georgewllms5@aim.com Sent from the Internet (Details) (aolmsg://02c2a570/inethdr/1)

Dear,

I am sorry for contacting you through this medium without a previous notice; I had to use the e-mail because it is an easier and more confidential way of making contact with people around the world. My name is barrister George Williams, am forty five (45) year old attorney in practice here in London England. I had a client by name Mr. Victor Mia, a businessman based here in London, now deceased. My client lost his life alongside his wife and only child on the 7th of July 2005 on a bomb blast here in London. Details of this incidence can be checked on this following news link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4663931.stm

Prior to the death of my late client he made a fixed deposit of us$15.500, 000.00 million in a bank here in Europe. As his personal attorney before his death, I have been officially notified and instructed by the bank here in Europe where the money is currently deposited that I should provide and forward the particulars of Mr. Victor’s next of kin so that the funds in his account can be remitted into his next of kin's account in accordance with British laws.

However, as the personal attorney and close confident of late Mr. Victor, I want you to know that my late client died interstate, i.e. he died without leaving a will. Hence, all my efforts to locate any of his relative whom I can present to the bank have proved abortive.
Therefore I am seeking for your consent to present you as the deceased next of kin and subsequently the beneficiary of the fund so that the proceed of this account valued at us$15.500, 000.00 million can be paid to you for subsequent disbursement between you and i. 60% for me, 35% for you and then 5% will be set aside for any expenses we might incur in the course of this transaction.

If you can cooperate with me and receive this fund as next of kin to Mr. Victor, confirm your interest by contacting me through my e-mail. I can assure you that the deal is 100% risk free because I am in possession of the deceased personal file which contains all information’s which I shall use to prove your relationship with the deceased and thereafter the money will be paid into the account of whomever I present as Mr. Victor’s next of kin with proofs that I will present to the bank when needed.

When I receive a positive response and after proper discussion with you, I will furnish you all relevant information that will facilitate the release of the funds to you, an application will have to be filed to the bank for processing of the release of the funds into your nominated bank account.

I wait to hear from you.
My telephone number: +447924020113

Regards.
George Williams

[Lee DeRaud]

Yeah, that "dying interstate" will get you every time.:D

(Kind of like the old riddle that ends, "Where are the survivors buried?":cool:)

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

release of the funds into your nominated bank account.


myst be a typo, I'm sure what he meant was "the removal of funds from your nominated bank account".

[Dan Hintz]

Doug,

They're called shill bidders, and it's against eBay rules... if you suspect an account of using shill bidders, or you suspect a bidder of being a shill, report them to eBay.

I recently auctioned a few pieces of high-end test equipment, and there was a similar instance. The bid went up a few tens of dollars at a time (up to $800, if memory serves) until the max was hit (and they were the winner). Suddenly they backed out of their bid claiming the had made a typo (bid reversals are allowed for accidental typos, like bidding $400 instead of $40, but it should not happen often). How can you make a typo multiple times, each time increasing the bid? Lucky for me, someone else came along and bid well beyond that max, but I reported the bidder.

[Greg Cuetara]

I heard of one scam recently where a guy was asked about the nigerian lottery or something or rather and he turned it around to have these people rewrite the harry potter books which they did and then expected payment from him. It was quite an amusing article I read. Although having fun with these people sounds like fun I think we are all better off just hitting the delete button.

[Barbara Buhse]

Years ago (ok, not that many years) before all the computer technology, there was an old scam involving office supplies. They'd call an office, get a name, and then ship out office supplies with that name as the "PO Number" and charge about 5 times what they were worth, including the invoice. Then you'd want to return them, of course, and you'd get a machine. The invoice siad there was a 15% restocking fee... so, many would keep them and just pay the inflated prices.

Then there was the doctor who's brother owned an office supply store... same story, he had to liquidate the supplies, etc. etc.

There will be scams as long as there are fools, and there is one of those born every minute!

[Lee DeRaud]

Years ago (ok, not that many years) before all the computer technology, there was an old scam involving office supplies. They'd call an office, get a name, and then ship out office supplies with that name as the "PO Number" and charge about 5 times what they were worth, including the invoice. Then you'd want to return them, of course, and you'd get a machine. The invoice siad there was a 15% restocking fee... so, many would keep them and just pay the inflated prices.BTDT, very easy to deal with. You just call them back and tell them (or leave a message on the machine): "We didn't order this stuff. If you want it back, come pick it up. If you've got a problem with that, call the cops."

[Dan Hintz]

BTDT, very easy to deal with. You just call them back and tell them (or leave a message on the machine): "We didn't order this stuff. If you want it back, come pick it up. If you've got a problem with that, call the cops."
And on top of that: "Any supplies left on our premises over 30 days will be considered forfeit." Assuming they don't pick them up, your own terms then allow you to use those supplies without penalty, so they can't come back three months later and say "pay us for our supplies" after you used them up.

[Kelly Bingham]

One of our business neighbors was doing that office supplies scam - they finally got busted about 3 years ago. Exactly as Barbara explained! And yes, people usually just paid the invoice as I understand.

[Bill Cunningham]

Boy! If I had all the money I've been told I've won in European lotteries that I don't even remember entering, I'd be a rich man today.. or mabe not!!:D

[Jack Harper]

Does this mean I'm a real business now! Received my first scam mail, never mind the the fact that I don't sell anything remotely like their request.


Hello Sir,

Good morning and how are you doing today?My name is Deron Todd and i will like to make an order of Plaques from your shop.Below are the sizes and types i will like to order

Cast Bronze Plaques

With the sizes,15 x 10 , Straight Edge
(SE) (no border) and Textures should be Sculptured .The color should be Natural Sandblast (Bronze).The finishes should be Polished Bronze.

Let me know if you will need any other information.I will like to know the types and sizes you have in stock now if you don't have what i am requesting.I will like you to know that these plaques would be picked up from your shop by shippers and then shipped to my new Church in South Africa so let me know all your forms of payment and when they will be ready for pick up if you will be manufacturing them or ordering them specially for me.Thank you for your time and let me hear back from you as soon as you get this email.Thank you.

Regards.........

Deron Todd.

[Barbara Buhse]

One of our business neighbors was doing that office supplies scam - they finally got busted about 3 years ago. Exactly as Barbara explained! And yes, people usually just paid the invoice as I understand.

The people that sent me the supplies were in Southern California also. I kept all my supplies, called them to tell them I was keeping them, because the federal government does not place orders over the phone using someone's name as a PO #. And Lee, yes, i told them if they wanted them back they could come get them.

The interesting thing about that scam was that people really were getting supplies sent to them, (Its amazing how a canon cartirdage can cost more than the actual canon printer!) soI guess thats how they toed the legal line.

[AL Ursich]

Got a Drive in Scam the other day... My shop is away from the house and we have a long driveway. To keep an eye on things I have some Video Monitors on the Driveway and House. I even have the Radio Shack Passive IR alarms on the driveway. Hooked to the Radio Shack "Reporter" is a Car Alarm add on Pager that uses a Car Antenna to transmit up to 3 zones to a pocket pager. Works great when UPS shows up and I am working out side away from the beeper box. The Drive way detectors are RF and you can barely see them.

So into the driveway is a new white crew cab pick up with 5 guys dressed in new green highway reflective vests. The guy hops out and tells me they are doing a paving job up the road and have a half a load left and can he work a deal to do some of our driveway?.....

I look at the business card.... County wide Paving.... some nice paving machines clip art a phone number and a list of services. Paving, driveway sealing, hole patching..... No name, No address, no eMail.... Just a number..... I stuffed the card into my pocket told him NO and started toward the truck... He got nervous and said OK.... Ran for the truck and backed up the driveway not giving me a chance to see the license plate.... One more thing.... He had a new orange flashing light in the truck.... A Kojack Magnetic..... NO Magnetic Sign... Easy Get away... WHO... ME.......

It had SCAM written all over it to me..... I quick called the number using my Internet Phone and it was a Cell not found.....

The Cameras and Beeper are more for the Christmas Tree Business we have... But they do make the place more secure.

I listen to a scanner all day in the shop and Crime is WAY UP.....

AL

[Craig Hogarth]

Al, there's a similar scam in my area. A guy walks in to a business saying that he was supposed to deliver meat to a restaurant in Canada, but didn't have the proper customs clearance and was turned away. He explains it his fault and he needs to unload it before he get back to his warehouse in Seattle and offers to sell to you at a discounted rate.

I bought 100 lbs of 8 oz "new york strips" and it wasn't the best meat I've had. But considering I talked him down to $90 for the box, it wasn't that bad of a deal.

[Dan Hintz]

Bummer, Al, it would have been a better story had you actually seen the license plate and reported them. A similar scam happens down in Florida from time to time dealing with roofers. People come home after a hard day at work to see half of their roof ripped up and a crew working on it. After the crew explains how they must have been working on the wrong roof (it should have been a "neighbor"), they give you the option of paying to have it rebuilt... if you refuse, they quickly drive away and you're stuck with a ruined roof. Many pay...

[jeremy levine]

When the emails arive to my work email address I just reply with one of these phone numbers

http://www.secretservice.gov/field_offices.shtml

http://www.usmarshals.gov/contacts/index.html

http://www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/state.htm

Really I did this all through the late 90's when I was Sys Admin.

[Bill Cunningham]

Al, there's a similar scam in my area. A guy walks in to a business saying that he was supposed to deliver meat to a restaurant in Canada, but didn't have the proper customs clearance and was turned away. He explains it his fault and he needs to unload it before he get back to his warehouse in Seattle and offers to sell to you at a discounted rate.

I bought 100 lbs of 8 oz "new york strips" and it wasn't the best meat I've had. But considering I talked him down to $90 for the box, it wasn't that bad of a deal.

Hmmm Do you know what kind of animal that it 'really' came from? Anyone missing a horse? Old milk cow? Theft from a 'rendering plant'? You would be amazed at some of the requests for various types of 'inspection stamps' I've turned down over the years.. Meat and Customs among them..

[Darren Null]

One rule to bind them all:
If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is

And another one:
Only the greedy can get scammed

You haven't won an email lottery; there isn't $Xmillion waiting for you in an offshore account and the better the order from a fresh customer is, the more you need to scrutinise it. Oh yeah, you can get fake rolexes (or pretty well anything else) cheaply in China without the middleman fees; drugs will not make your willy get bigger; and viagra only goes so far and is quite risky, even if you buy the proper thing from a trusted source. The latter is a contentious statement, I know, but I'm quite prepared to prove it if the challenger puts up the cheerleading team.

EDIT: Oh yes. If you buy anything. ANYTHING!!!!! Anything from people who send you unsolicited emails then you need to slap yourself hard. If you click on a link in the email, then you are just confirming to the scumsuckers that your email address is a working -and therefore spammable- address and you will get more spam. Spam is cheap and it works, which it's still around and why you're getting so much of it. The reason it works is that 1 person in 1000 will fall for it. Do your bit and don't be one of them.

EDIT AGAIN: If you get executable attachments, don't click on them. That includes word documents, screensavers, file endings that you don't recognise (and quite often aren't shown in outlook). If there's an attachment in an email than treat it with suspicion, especially if you weren't expecting it. That goes for URLs (particularly long urls with all sorts if funny stuff after the main link), e-cards, unexpected online presents, unexpected offers and that sort of thing. There's viruses that go through your friends' address book and mail themselves out to everyone in there, so you get an email from a mate and click on the bit that stuffs your computer. Also, don't use outlook. It's free and comes bundled with windoze, and is therefore the most popular email client on the planet. If you wrote virussessess, what would you aim at?

Illiud Latine dici non potest

[Craig Hogarth]

here's another one that I totally went overboard with.

Scammer: Hello This Jackson Mc Claren and i will like to Order some of Plaques And i want you to get back to me with the total qoute for the following Plaques without but i need the total cost with tax And this The Size that I need 10" x 15" inches And I Need the Material:Bronze And I want you Email me Back with the pick up price for the 100 Pieces of the Plaques okay. Also what types of Credi tCard do you accept? I will be looking forward to your reply ASAP,and pls if u dont have this tyope in stock pls email me with ur website so that i will go throu and see if i may get my choice and proced wit my order.
Jackson Mc Claren

me: Greetings Mr McClaren. Currently bronze will run you $4.65 a square inch or $697.50 per plaque. Due to the quantity, there will be no artwork or set up fee. The total cost will be $75,609 including tax. I accept visa, mastercard, discover, and cashier checks. Payment must be made in full prior to the start of production and I should be able to have these done within 12 to 16 weeks. If you want them within 2 to 4 weeks, a 75% rush charge will be assessed.

I look forward to working with you.

Thanks
Craig

Scammer: Thank u very much for the care and concern u have for me and i really appreciate doing bussiness with u and i will like u to contact the shipping company and get me the price from ur location to the delivery location i mail u with it just send them an e-mail with the sizes and the weight of the Materials and the delivery location and ur pick up address and they will give u and shipping qoute and i will like u to e-mail me with it as soon as u get the shipping qoute okey,so that i will make the full payment all together and plus ur charges on and as soon as its ready for pick and they will come at ur location and pick it up for me okey..This their e-mail address once again..
tranquilityshippingcompany@yahoo.com and the shipping address is..

I ended contacting the shipping company telling them at it will be 3500lbs and it's only going to cost $1,750 to ship it to West Africa!!!

[Dan Hintz]

More and more the scammers seem to care less and less what they're getting, only that they get something. I cannot imagine them actually being able to resell half of the crap they request these days... the stuff is often worth more as firewood or scrap metal.

[Ray Gardiner]

They don't actually ever want the stuff, the scam is some kind of spurious
advance payment, like freight, insurance, customs duty anything, so long as they can con **YOU** into paying it. It might amount to a only few hundred dollars or whatever. That's the scam. The goods are irrelevant.

The credit card bit, is to make you feel that you already got paid, and therfore more likely to cough up the spurious advance payment.

Then they walk away with a few hundred dollars for a days work.

Of course a few hundred dollars goes a long way in Nigeria. (or wherever).

At least that's how I understand it works. If I've got it wrong....

By the way Craig, I like your quotation calculations.

$697.50*100 =$75,609, plus freight of course.

would you be interested in doing some quotes for me...:)

[Dan Hintz]

Ray,

That's a scam, but certainly not the only one... when they place a credit card order, they want the goods shipped (everything, including shipping, gets charged to the card... and often split across multiple cards). When they expect money back, they use fake Western Union checks (or the like).

[Ray Gardiner]

Ray,

That's a scam, but certainly not the only one... when they place a credit card order, they want the goods shipped (everything, including shipping, gets charged to the card... and often split across multiple cards). When they expect money back, they use fake Western Union checks (or the like).

Hi Dan,
You are correct, there are many scams and variations. Sometimes it's
difficult to figure out exactly how they work.

Here is a good site, explaining how some of them work.

http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/693900

Not obvious for a trusting soul like me. :rolleyes:

[Joe Pelonio]

Here's another one I just got.

Hello Sir/Mardam,

I AM Rev Harry Landsman and i am conatating your company to know if you can make a order of banners for me.and if yes Please email me the pickup price for the 13oz matte blockout reinforced vinyl,hemmed with 3 grommets top,3 bottom with the size 35.5"x83.5 with no logo and the text on the banner should say (FELLOWSHIP TO THE LORD) ,email me back with the total price for 50 banners along with your full contact name and phone number so that i can provide you with my credit card account number for the payment charges,also i want to inform you that i will need just the price without shipping because i will come to you place for the pickup.

May the lord richly bless you for your patient.

Best Regard
Harry Landsman

[Dan Hintz]

He's going to come there for pickup? More likely (and at the last minute) there will be a "mixup" and a shipping company will show up to retrieve the banners. I say screw with them and see if they want to pay by CC or check... if it's by CC, I'd be interested to know how they intend to make money off of such odd banners.

[Joe Pelonio]

They don't really want the banners.

This particular scam is one where they have a freshly stolen credit card, not yet reported, rather than the forged cashier's check. They would probably end up wanting to pay more than my price and then I would be stupid enough to send the additional money to their "shipping agent." A week or two later I'd be notified by my processor that the credit card was stolen and be out the shipping money, which is their profit.

[Phil Salvati]

I wonder just how many folks get taken by these guys.

I got it twice as a naive young man, years and then some ago!.... not by computer scams, but scamers just the same!

I bought the most expensive knife/candy bar ever as a teenager in NYC! and yes it tasted great! :D

As a young man starting a business I purchased plaques for my vehicles that was to support the local state police fund.... Later, I was contacted by the FBI, it was a scam from prison cons! I got the plaques as promised though! LOL

Like Dan, I recently had some fun with an Email my wife received stating a contract was taken on her life. It went on for several weeks and we had some great fun with it! And yes she is still here with me healthy and happy! :)

Years later...a little smarter & wiser!

Phil