SCAM hit from gear ads

[Jim Seamans]

Just got a email from this person wanting to buy my vhf radio listed in the gear ads area. Anyone out there been hit by this person???
Everything looked above board until this email came this morning.
Needless to say this conversation is terminated...



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Hello,

Thanks for your reply towards the price and your acceptance of my payment method, i want you to know that the price is okay by me and payment will be sent to you within the next few days, but i want you to know that the check will be sent in excess, the excess which is meant for the shipping of the item, as i want you to know that i have my shipping company that will come for the shipping of the item, which they will not come until you inform them the check clears your bank, just for you to be sure of whom you dealing with, i want you to know i am a very honest person and will let you know that i have been a very good buyer, and if you really want i can give you references of people that have deal with me and you can confirm from them who i am really is... if all this is accepted by you please do get back to me with the following information so that the check can be mailed out to you.. the Information are as follows:

The name you want on the check?
The address where you want the check to be sent to?
And your phone Number which i can contact you on once the check is been sent to you.

Will be waiting to read from you soonest..

Regards to you and your family.

 

[Maine Sail]

Dear Sir,

The price is fine however I will only accept funds in US cash based on your clear misuse of the English language which clearly resembles that of a SCAM artist..

Feel free to wire the US FUNDS to a local Western Union. When I receive the CASH I will ship the item. Please send an excess of $1000.00 US dollars to cover shipping expenses, customs fees etc.. I am a very honest person also..

 

[Mike1956]

I had a similar response to an ad I ran on Craigslist for my old Catalina 22. the customer emailed me offering $500 above the asking price. I responded to him that I had just sold the boat before I had the opportunity to read his email offer. I told him that i would still like to take him up on the offer of the extra $500 and he could send it via paypal to me. For some reason though, he didn't take me up on the offer.

 

[Hermit Scott]

Dear Sir,

The price is fine however I will only accept funds in US cash based on your clear misuse of the English language which clearly resembles that of a SCAM artist..
..

You can't really call them an 'artist' until they make excellent to english language.

 

[SeacretSailor]

Hey Jim,
I'm a Federal Agent and I work fraud cases all the time. These are Nigerians living in Canada, the UK or West Africa and they relentlessly scan e-Bay, Craigslist and websites like this one for motivated sellers. What they do is they send you a counterfeit check for the price & shipping, plus an extra amount that they ask you to wire or send back to them. They are hoping that you will deposit the check and wire/send the extra money before you hear from your bank that the check's counterfeit.

You can tell the Nigerian email scams by the muddled grammar, proper English type words and they always include info about a "shipping agent." I sold my trailerable 22 ft MacG sailboat on Craigslist and within hours, Nigerians were contacting me from England wanting to buy my small sailboat and have it shipped to the UK, and could they send me a check in excess.

We're now seeing Jamaicans in Canada and the Caribbean running these same scams too, using the same scenarios. Some suspects here in the US, too lazy to get an honest job or make their own cft checks, will "troll" the internet with stuff for sale and once contacted by the Nigerians, will accept their cft checks and then try to go cash them and pocket the case, and then leave the overseas scammers waiting for money....

I advise the public, when selling something over the internet, to always insist on getting a US phone number and talking to the person and ask questions. See if it passes your smell test: Would a Nigerian in England really want to buy a $30 vhf radio from little oh me in Happy, Texas, send me a check for $500 and arrange for a shipping agent?

For my job, I spend hours calling these scammers (when they are posing banks and legit companies) and pester them with inconvenient questions like verifying their address, management, licenses, etc. until they eventually hang-up on me and refuse to talk anymore.

Lastly, remember that these guys are sitting in an internet cafe in Lagos, Nigeria in shorts and flip-flops sending out emails by the hundreds waiting for you to respond. If 1 out of 1,000 respond and take the bait, they've had a good day. It's best to ignore and delete because once you respond, they've highlighted your name and email address as a potential target for later.

 

[Jim Seamans]

Love these guys. I ran a reverse lookup on him and shows to be in India.
Wish I had time to screw with him but time is getting short and is time to pack the saddle bags and get out of Dodge.....

BTW. Everything seemed to be fine with this guy until that message came in. Was appearing to be on the up and up..BUT

 

[higgs]

Thank you Seacret Sailor.

 

[RonRelyea]

Thought this was a scam

I had a Volkswagen Touareg listed for sale on cars dot com. My wife got a call from a guy with a thick Russian accent. He was from the NYC area 60 miles away. My wife blew off the phone call and didn't return his call. This guy persisted .. and called back ... offering the full asking price in cash (I wouldn't even think about accepting a check). I was REAL freakin' wary ... but eventually told the guy that I'd meet him in the parking lot of the credit union that held my car loan ...he came on a Saturday morning, with his chauffer. He went over the Touareg with a magnet to make sure there was no bondo in the fenders (and this really threw him since the Touareg fenders are plastic and he didn't know this beforehand!!!!). He had his bluetooth cell phone on and was talking to some guy in Russian a good part of the time. He then took a briefcase out of his trunk and we walked into the credit union. He counted out the 20+ thousand in hundred dollar bills and handed it to me ... I took it to the teller .. who was obiviously pretty nervous ... they counted it out ... paid of my loan and I signed the car over to the guy. At that point I asked what his modus operandi was ... he told me he bought cars that were "requested" in Russia ... shipped them to Sweden and delivered them from there to Moscow. One of his biggest concerns was if the heated seats worked ... he tested them out in the middle of summer!

It's been a couple of years, and the Secret Service still hasn't contacted me!!!!! The Touareg is now in Moscow and I bought a Camry with a lot better gas mileage......

 

[sinnettc]

I had a guy try to buy my Capri 16.5 from Egypt a couple years ago, and would I please ship it. Uh, sorry dude . . .

 

[Ken13559]

You guys are lucky. At least some nigerian made you an offer ...I got nothing.

 

[SeacretSailor]

Um, Ron, actually I do need to talk to you about that Moscow/Car/Cash deal. It's been on my desk for the last month and I'm just now getting to your case. LOL! Just kidding, I'll close your file and shred it, since you're a fellow sailor.

I once rode a train between Munich, Germany & Prague and my fellow travellers were 4 young Russians. Every month they trained it to Munich, bought 4 cars with cash, drove them from Munich to Moscow and sold them for 2x-3x their purchase price!

 

[RonRelyea]

Kevin ... thanks for the break ... I owe you!

 

[MitchM]

had a 30 ft sailboat for sale in 07, asking 25$K. got email in very good english offering full price sight unseen. buyer sent cashier check on amryland credit union for full price THEN sent another check asme credit union for $5K for me to book the hauler from my yard to MD. deal had to be done FAST! kept emailing me did i get the c hecks did i book the hauler. finally asked for her phone number 'as my email was unreliable...' phone traced to a russian in NYC... credit union finally got back to me and said checks were phony BUT it took them 2 weeks to verify that... so i told emailer to send cash thru western union, while reporting them to the internet fraud squad... if i had deposited those checks in my bank i'd be looking at $$ for bank bounce charges. and i would really be up a creek if i had agreed to the demands to 'ship NOW..." o brother !!!!
i'd prefer my russian to deliver cash haha.

 

[Freedom77]

SCAMS. P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute." If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't. Even the simple process of ordering a Snuggie for my wife turned into a nightmare. I received it and shorltly thereafter started getting phone calls from people with accents. They had the last four of my CC # and were offeing me some kind of deal. Each time a different person. Finally, I started telling them I was dead and soon the calls stopped.:Liar: Fair winds...