First, learn how to spoof an email address, then send them an email with a return address to the FBI. Or, suggest he communicate with you through your personal website. Go ahead, click on the link. 
My I/O is for sale on boatrader.com Is this query a scam?
- Thread starter shemandr
- Start date
I can't help but think this is helping someone avoid fraud.
There are somethings that we can't be reminded of too often.
Like "Wash your hands properly".
Thanks for taking the time.
Best of luck with the sale.
gary
There are somethings that we can't be reminded of too often.
Like "Wash your hands properly".
Thanks for taking the time.
Best of luck with the sale.
gary
I had a boat for sails few years back...had a call from someone claiming to want to buy my boat, offering more than the asking price and offering to send $40,000 extra to cover shipping to the East coast.
i said ”sure, send me a check”, thinking that they would go away... several days later, I had a letter and a check for the boat and the shipping. Something about the check looked odd, and I reached out to the checking account owner...who told me her account had been compromised a year earlier...and she asked what account number was on the check (she was really hoping it was not her new account).
I don’t know what would have happened if I tried to deposit (or cash) the check....but instead, I sent the check to the account owner so she could turn it over to the FBI.
the old adage “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is” sounds about right for this situation.
Greg
i said ”sure, send me a check”, thinking that they would go away... several days later, I had a letter and a check for the boat and the shipping. Something about the check looked odd, and I reached out to the checking account owner...who told me her account had been compromised a year earlier...and she asked what account number was on the check (she was really hoping it was not her new account).
I don’t know what would have happened if I tried to deposit (or cash) the check....but instead, I sent the check to the account owner so she could turn it over to the FBI.
the old adage “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is” sounds about right for this situation.
Greg
jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,072
When these frauds, scams, email phishing activities happen I can’t help but remember this TedTalk and begin laughing.
www.ted.com
This is what happens when you reply to spam email
Suspicious emails: unclaimed insurance bonds, diamond-encrusted safe deposit boxes, close friends marooned in a foreign country. They pop up in our inboxes, and standard procedure is to delete on sight. But what happens when you reply? Follow along as writer and comedian James Veitch narrates a...
www.ted.com
You can always have some fun stringing them along with absurd requests; ask to certify that the mover will bring a terrier as the boats full of angry rats. Tell the buyer you’ll get back to them but you’re in the middle of Mr. Poppers Penguins and invite a conversation discussing the movie, possibilities are endless and amusing if you need to kill some time...
I find that there is a certain divine justice represented by these scams. They originate primarily from former British colonies, conquered and exploited by my ancestors for centuries. Countries like India and Nigeria. British language and culture were forced upon them, and now they use their facility in english to claw back some of the wealth that was extracted from them. Their methods vary in sophistication, but even the least sophisticated seem to take their little toll of us. It is indeed unfortunate that many of their victims are in the United States, but you are after all in many ways the heirs of the British Empire, in the sense of carrying the Anglo-Saxon torch into the 21st century. The real facilitators of these scammers are the financial institutions, like PayPal, Western Union and even your own bank, who pretend that there is nothing that they can do and that it is not their responsibility to do anything anyway. They take their fees from the fraudulent transfers and pocket them without a qualm of conscience.
A legitimate offer will come with a personal visit by the buyer who makes the offer in person. Cash is king for smaller amounts, bank or wire transfers for larger amounts.
Would you buy a boat any other way?
While I bought my boat over the phone, I show with the check to pay and take the boat away in person. If it were a more valuable boat than $1500, I would have been all through that boat to inspect it in person. If the value were over about $9000, I'd hire a surveyor to help. Anyone who has bought anything from a used automobile to an expensive zither, will want personal inspection of the accuracy of the represented state of the item.
-Will (Dragonfly)
I love stringing scammers along, especially phone scammers. It means they have less hours in the day to scam the elderly. It's really no skin off my back as I am often printing shipping labels or responding to emails and I do it while they are on speaker phone. The infected computer scammers are the best.
My record for this is 1:16 minutes. Sometimes I record the calls for entertainment value as my daughter loves the replay. Sometimes I do accents, or come across as really niaeve and stupid. "Sorry my computer is being so slow to restart, due to this infection, please be patient."
They get super pissed when I finally got bored and tell them I am with the FBI or other agency.......
"Youah fahkeng biotchh."
I actually saved that one as a ring tone.
My record for this is 1:16 minutes. Sometimes I record the calls for entertainment value as my daughter loves the replay. Sometimes I do accents, or come across as really niaeve and stupid. "Sorry my computer is being so slow to restart, due to this infection, please be patient."
They get super pissed when I finally got bored and tell them I am with the FBI or other agency.......
"Youah fahkeng biotchh."
I actually saved that one as a ring tone.
I did that too.
"Oh my... sorry, it's just a solid blue screen now! What do I do?"
After I told the guy I didn't even have a computer in front of me, he had exactly the same response.
Then, we just talked, he apologized and said he was just practicing his English. Said he wasn't allowed to hang up before I did. We talked some more.
-Will (Dragonfly)
"Oh my... sorry, it's just a solid blue screen now! What do I do?"
After I told the guy I didn't even have a computer in front of me, he had exactly the same response.
Then, we just talked, he apologized and said he was just practicing his English. Said he wasn't allowed to hang up before I did. We talked some more.
-Will (Dragonfly)
Most if not all of these are scams but I do know a Nigerian Prince who is interested in the boat.
One interesting thing I learned from various Interpol arrest reports is that the slightly poor grammar in the emails is actually intentional; it instantly weeds out people who would likely be to savvy to fall for the scam. Always assumed it was a language issue, but these are perpetrated on a global scale by very intelligent individuals, in many different languages.
Malaysia and South African are currently largest source of them; Nigerian is simply a holdover to an earlier time when mail fraud was being perpetrated typically with some sort of “Nigerian royalty” involved.
Malaysia and South African are currently largest source of them; Nigerian is simply a holdover to an earlier time when mail fraud was being perpetrated typically with some sort of “Nigerian royalty” involved.
Someday when all my projects are done I'm going to list a fictitious boat for sale and play with these guys. Not at all sure why that sounds fun to me. Must be some character flaw in my personality from a forgotten trauma in my childhood.
Interesting world view. It is our burden to suffer for Victorian England bringing these cultures into the first or at least second world. Perhaps it should not stop there but we should make the Vandals and the Vikings responsible as well?
Oh and now we should not let other countries plunder their natural resources as the rest of the industrialized world has for the last two hundred years because it upsets our sensibility.
You may be right.
I can't help but get an institutional vibe around these scams. There's enough consistency that it feels like there are actually people who may go INTO work to compose and circulate these frauds. However, even if there were actually companies that hire this work done, it can be telecommuted, so the virus quarantines definately won't stop it.
It's one of those things that people do to each other to make life just a little less pleasant for everyone.
-Will (Dragonfly)